Category Archives: our story

This life.

Another week bites the dust. I’ve had a bit of fun this week taking virtual tours of potential towns after your responses to my call out on Monday. How wonderfully diverse and beautiful is our country? I’m still truly no closer to deciding where we might end up. I’m terribly torn between my love for the east coast and the proximity that the west coast has to my own family. So I’m still playing with ideas and hoping that the right, something, will fall into my lap in the near future, and all will become clearer.

We’ve been out on farms and in the bush this week. Hiking and playing and discovering the wild. I’m coming to the end of my semester at Uni so I’m a little stressed because I’m a terribly professional procrastinator and I have trouble getting work done unless it’s down to the wire. So I’m procrastinating and then beating myself up for procrastinating when really I should be writing these essays and getting myself over the line so that I only have next semester left and then I can pack these books away for a while. Slowly, slowly, I go.

I’ve been interviewed a few times in the past week. Interviewed about life, about myself, about parenting. I’ve shared a few secrets and a few stories. You can check them out here on (Not) Just a Mummy and over here, on Babyspace, one of my favourite little spaces on the internet.

I loved that you shared your favourite posts with me last week. It made for some very interesting weekend reading. Shall we play again? I’m going to be adding a blogroll to Inked in the next few weeks and I’m always looking for great blog inspiration, new must-reads and wonderful little corners of the internet that I’ve never heard of. Want to leave me a link here on this post? Your blog, your favourite blog, your next door neighbours blog. If you know something that I might love, I want to hear about it!

I wish you all a beautiful weekend inked in colour and laughter and sleep. Oh how lovely would a sleep in be! I hope one of you has one so I can live vicariously through you.x

A little seed.

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I’ve been living in the back room at my mothers house for a while now. Finding my strength. Finding my feet. Surrounding Bo and I in safety and warmth with the added security of having my own mama close during the most challenging time of my life. But through the long and difficult summer of my broken heart I discovered a little flame of eternal hope that lives inside me, and like a roaring fire it refuses to be silenced. The time is coming for me to leave the nest once more. After months of tumbling through my own mind, somersaulting from one idea to another, trying to find direction… I know now what I’ve known all along. I don’t want to live in a city. I was raised a city girl, but after living for so many years now in rural lands around the world, my place is no longer the city.

I don’t know where it is I belong. But I know it’s not amongst the towering buildings. And it’s certainly not in a housing estate, where every house looks the same.

I want to grow a garden to feed us. I want to raise Bo in a mindful way, close to a city so that I have opportunities for work and growth in my industry but in a community of shared resources and creativity and fertile land. I know that this means starting over, without my family, and the road will be long and there will be some big challenges along the way. I’ve never been scared of hard work, and I know what I want for my little family. And I’m not going to let my own fear get in the way of that.

The question now is, where?

How lucky I am to have the whole world at my feet. To be able to make such a big decision for my child and myself. To have the freedom to choose a village or a town or a place and pack up and go. How blessed I am not to be tied to a place or a neighborhood. How lucky to have options. It might take me a while to decide where to go. But the path is becoming clearer. Choose a state, choose a city to be close to, to choose to be close to the ocean or close to the mountains, to choose a town, to choose a house, to start a new life.

Like a little seed this idea has been planted into the cool autumn earth, and by summer, the hope is that it will have sprouted the fragile seedling with strong roots, and the determination to grow. The beginning of a new life for Bo and I. A new life with a bright future.

So my question to you is, if you could live in any small town in Australia, where would you live and why? I’m on the (perpetual) inspiration hunt.

This life.

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What a week!

We’ve been on lots of adventures. Last weekend I had my first day out since having Bo. And my first wild festival day since long before I fell pregnant. I danced and I laughed and I nursed cans between my knees and sat on shoulders and danced and laughed some more with some beautiful friends. We left our babies with their grandparents and let loose. It was just the mothers day present to myself that I needed. It was freedom. It was awesome. How lucky am I to have such great new friends right here on my doorstep?

Bo and I ventured further south to meet with Jess and Jonny from Rebel on a Rainbow, which was awesome. It isn’t very often that we get to meet up with our internet friends. The nature of the blog industry means that connections and networks go above and beyond the bounds of countries or cities. Which means I have beautiful friends writing their stories from all around the world. When the opportunity came to get out of the house and go and meet two of the most inspirational people I’ve read about online, I couldn’t pass it up. It was spectacular.

We have had some wild weather this week so we’ve been hiding out in the house watching the rain, listening to the thunder, painting and drawing and playing dolls. We’ve been dreaming of our future home, wondering where in the world it might end up. My answer? It’s still in the wind.

I hope your weekend is full of light and love and inked in colour. Bo and I will be snuggled up indoors for the most part and if the weather clears we might head out to the farm land to do a shoot and write an article for work. We’ll see. We don’t have much planned. Probably some lounge room picnic tea parties with some dolls, maybe some painting… definitely some far off dreaming.

Have you got a link you’d like to share with me? A favourite blog post that you’ve read or written? A video or a story you think deserves to be seen? Leave the link here in the comments, I know I’d love to broaden my reading a bit this weekend. Let’s share the love around!

xox

Dear Bo,

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Dear Bo,

Today you are 15 months old. Another three months has come and gone and with it you have changed and grown and become more of yourself. Every day you surprise me and you change me. Life is nothing without growth and change, and you intrinsically know this. you are still such a primal creature, you want for only what you need. Love and food and warmth and safety. All of those things I am so lucky to be able to provide you with ease.

Sure we don’t have our own house yet, we don’t have a lot of money in the bank, we don’t have a reliable car or a fancy wardrobe or any idea what the future will bring. But what we do have is enough. We have enough food and enough warmth and enough shelter. We have more than enough love to go around. We have each other. And kid, that is more than enough. Sometimes I wonder how I’m going to be “enough” for you, enough of a mother, enough of a leader, enough of a care giver. I wonder how I can do the job of two when I am only one. But then I see the way that you look at me and the trust in your hands when you reach out to me and the love in your eyes when you wave to me when you wake up in the morning. And I realise, I’m already doing it. We’re doing it together. And we are enough.

There are lots of things that I want to teach you, but every day you teach me twice as much as I could hope to show you. You are already role playing with your toys, you climb into cardboard boxes and feed them and give them drinks and cuddle and kiss them and sing your funny little songs into their ears. You show me what love is. You show me how to slow down and how to appreciate every moment even when I’m exhausted and weary, you are there, smiling, with nothing but laughter and joy (and hair pulling, with the best of intentions).

I’ve been thinking a lot over the past days, weeks, months, about what it is that I have learned in my 27 years about life that I want to show you. What it is I want you to learn. There are a lot of things, of course, and I’ve mentioned them in my past letters to you, but if there was just one thing…. what would it be? Then the other day I was having a bit of trouble with my own emotions. I was struggling with my own grief and my own fear about my future, I was having a bit of a private moment, as people do, I was overwhelmed by the hugeness of it all. I was searching for the answer. And I found it. I took a deep breath and I reminded myself to be kind, to myself. To be gentle with myself. And that’s it. That’s what I want for you.

If I am to show you anything it is how to be kind. How to understand your power as a human being and the great responsibility that comes along with it. The responsibility to be kind to the world around you, the responsibility you have to be kind every person you come in contact with in your life. The responsibility you have to yourself, to be kind to yourself even when life get’s hard, and it does. It really does some times. To be kind to yourself even when you make mistakes. To be kind to yourself and to others even when the world seems cruel.

“You are the sky. Everything else – it’s just the weather.” Pema Chodron

More babies will (hopefully) come to our family one day, but you will always be the person who changed me. The person that gave me the most important role that I have ever held in my life. The role of the mother. You will always be the person who changed me, who gifted me perspective and kindness and patience beyond anything I had before. Thank you, Bo. Thank you.

I used to yearn for adventure, and I still do, and we will go and do some amazing things together and separately. But I’m no longer searching, the wild I always searched for is in you now. You are my wild. You are my greatest adventure.

I love you.

Your Mama, always.
xox

Mothers.

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My mother and her three.

“Making the decision to have a child – it’s momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.”

– Elizabeth Stone

Motherhood, it is the most difficult job in the world, but it is also the most rewarding. To my own mother (above) who gives of her space and her time and her love daily, helping Bo and I to find our new direction. Thank you, for everything you have done, for everything you do now, and for everything you will do for us in the future. I literally wouldn’t be here without you.

And to my beautiful daughter who gave me the worlds most precious gift, there are no words to express my undying gratitude. You are the only one who knows what my heart sounds like from the inside, and I will always love you with the ferocity that I did the very first moment I laid eyes on you. May I always have the strength and patience to be the mother that you deserve.

Happy (belated) mothers day, Mama’s.

This life.

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What have you been up to this week?

We were up in the city for the weekend and Perth put on beautiful weather for a trip to the zoo with my sister and my niece and nephew. It makes me feel very blessed to get to do such wonderful things under the guise of “work.” Bo was pretty stoked to check out the animals and a little less stoked to ride on the carousel (ok, she really wasn’t into that bit at all).

We lunched with the beautiful Peggy from Cake crumbs & Beach sand. It was so amazing to actually get to meet on of my blog-crushes in the flesh and chat and laugh and eat some amazing food put on by the team at Chefz Table. The guys who have just opened this “relaxed fine dining” restaurant are old friends of mine and young dudes in the fine dining business, and they totally deserve the rave reviews they are getting. They’ve done a bloody brilliant job of this restaurant and the food is fancy, delicious and totally impressive. If you’re in Perth, go and treat yourself to a fully interactive dining experience. It’s awesome. Seriously.

Since being back in our little home in the little town south of Perth, we’ve just been getting back into our daily rhythm. Days filled with rain and wind and thunder have kept us indoors. Painting, cooking and drinking tea and to be honest, going a little stir crazy. But I’ve done a fair bit of getting-lost-online this week and I have some awesome links that I think you’d love too.

I loved this article on the middle-class poor, it’s something that I see a lot of on my facebook feed, people with lots of opportunity crying poor. First world problems that aren’t problems. I think it’s really easy to become complacent, to cry poor and to feel hard done by. Forgetting there are people who are really struggling, and not because they can’t afford to buy a new iPad.

These family photos made me smile, Ashley rocks and is a seriously funny lady… if you haven’t checked out her blog, you should… in fact her Instagram feed has me snorting out loud periodically throughout the day and is definitely worth a look in.

This Ted Talk made me sit up and pay attention. If you haven’t seen this guy speak yet. You should. If you think that feminism doesn’t matter, you need to see this. And if you (like me) believe that this is a serious issue that needs attention, this persepctive will do nothing but fire you up even more. Watch it. Just do it.

It’s mothers day this weekend. I hope you’re all going to have some time with your mums and your babies and your families. Mothers day isn’t really about gifts (though a sleep in would be nice), it’s just about love. It’s just about saying, thank you to that one person who gave you life.

Thanks mum. x

This life

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We’ve been battling the on-again off-again flu this week. It’s like we just can’t seem to kick it. If one of us isn’t sick, the other is. We had a lovely surprise visit with an old friend, breakfasts by the beach, making sand castles and watching baby dolphins play meters away from us in the calm water is a real gift to soothe even the weariest of souls.

We are more or less just plodding along over here. There are big dreams and even bigger plans in the works but time is not on my side at the moment.

This little creature of mine is turning into such a lovely little person – all mothers probably think this, don’t they? She draws and she sings and she blows kisses. When I meet her at daycare she yells out to me and waves goodbye and packs her own bag ready to go. We’ve had our first lay-on-the-floor tantrum in the middle of the shops, which was a suppose a baptism of fire for me in this new life, life with a full blown toddler. Does all of this growing and changing ever slow down? It’s like life is in fast forward. Is anyone else totally amazed that it’s May already? Summer has come and gone and autumn is making tracks quickly towards winter. The ugg boots have been unearthed from the closet and the gumboots have been purchased (and are now proudly worn for much of the day)… and on we trek, side by side and hand in hand, towards whatever the future has in store for us.

Whatever that is, only time will tell.

Our weekend is full up with a trip to the city and lunch with new friends and meetings and trips to the zoo with family. It’ll be nice to touch base with every one again. It already feels like forever since we’ve seen them all, hiding down here in this little town.

What’s on the cards for you this weekend?

Whatever it is I hope it’s days of calm and joy and love. We all deserve a little time out and a whole lot of laughs.Thanks, as always, for coming along for the ride.

Today, I am myself.

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Today I am myself.

I am tired. I am stretched. Yesterday I lost it because my child wouldn’t go to sleep. All day long I tried to get her to go to sleep and all day long she fought me like the stubborn little soul she is. I’d say, Bo you need to go to sleep, through gritted teeth and weary eyes, Mama has to work/eat/sleep/cry/shower. She looked at me with those big dark pools for eyes, staring me down, No, she said shaking her head, No.

She’s a determined little creature.

I lost it and I cried and I fell apart. I am not perfect. There are days when it get to three o’clock in the afternoon and I wish that the day was over. I wish that I could lay in a hot bath and forget about the world. I wish that my work was done and my uni papers were written and those emails had been responded to. I wish that the kitchen was clean and the washing was done and the world was back in line. But it’s not, dishes are left dirty, projects are left unfinished, and sanity left long ago – because there we are, in our little room in the back of the house, waging a war on toddler sleeplessness.

Today, I am myself.

I am tired. Today I am going to the doctor to talk about getting counseling. Counseling I have been putting off in the hope that perhaps I’ll wake up one day and all that crazy awful summer we just had, was really just a dream. But every morning when I wake, it’s the same. It’s just us. He isn’t here. He doesn’t call. He doesn’t hold my hand or kiss my head or tell me that he loves me. He doesn’t make me tea or take Bo for a walk or laugh with us or draw with us or hold us when we hurt. He doesn’t do any of those things, because he is gone. And as not-ok-with-that as I am, I am also OK (enough) with it. I’m not angry anymore. I’m not even all that sad. But I do have residual grief. Little pangs of moments where I think of how different it could have been. How different it was meant to be. Some days I’m happy and I feel like I’ve got it together, other days I’m just numb, and other days, like yesterday, I’m stretched to my very limit and I can’t help but curse him under my breath. Curse him for not choosing us. And so I breathe it in and then I let it go. I let it go. Because holding on, isn’t any good for us. Holding on doesn’t help. And so I search for help. Help to let go of the little things I still hold on to. Help to understand all of the things that I know. That I am worth it. That I deserve more. That I deserve love. Help to understand who I am in all of this mess I’m left to clean up. Help to find myself again in all of this.Help to find a new direction.

There is no shame in asking for help.

There is no shame in recognising that you can’t do it all yourself. And I’ve put it off until now. But it is time. It is time for me to heal and move forward and embrace that beautiful life that I have always been chasing. The pursuit of happiness hit a bump in the road, and this is my way back. There are a thousand things I want to do and a million unrealised dreams and so much fire inside me. But right now I have to do what each of us need to do every day. Just start where we are.

So I start where I am today.

Today, I am myself. In all my imperfection. In my shorter-than-I’d-like-it-to-be fuse. In my messy hair and unfashionable clothes. In my darker moments and also in my light.Because in the end of the darkness, I can see such incredible light. In myself. In my girl. In our future.

Be yourself; everyone else is already taken – Oscar Wilde.

Today I am myself.

Who are you today?

This life.

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Another week has come and gone.Do they keep getting faster, or is it just me?

Bo and I are both recovering, thank you all for your kind get-well-soon emails and messages and comments. We are both doing much better today. With a stack of mid semester university work to do, I’m holed up in the library today forcing myself to get-on-top-of-it and Bo is at daycare for a few hours, regardless of the fact I wish we were both tucked up in bed watching something fun and animated with a big bowl of frozen berries and vanilla yoghurt.

When I’m sick I dream of the sick days I had as a child. you know the ones, when the couch becomes your bed and the TV your best friend and you watch your brothers and sisters head off to school with a little smirk on your face because you get to hang out in your pajamas and drink lemsip and waste the day away doing absolutely nothing at all except eating jelly and toast that your mama brings you. Those were the days, right? Totally worth a head cold.

Our weekend will be calm and probably filled with a bit of above. Movies. Good food. Naps (if Bo will allow it). And a lot of the responsibility stuff. Work. Work and a little more work, but work whilst still in pajamas sounds perfect to me. I did a little interview on how I make it all work (or not work) over at the wonderful Fable Lane. You should check it out, you know, if you’re into that kind of thing.

What do you have in store this weekend? Something fabulous I hope!

xox

A change in the season.

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It has been autumn for almost a month, according to the calendar, but just this week I have really felt the change in the air. The cool air. The need for our woolen cardigans for our trips to the park. The freshness that comes, so welcome, after a blistering Western Australian summer.

Now as the dense, heavy heat of summer is lifting, I can feel the same heavy heat in my heart begin to lift too. This summer was a difficult one for me personally. With great expectation and great, painful disappointment. This change in season is bringing with it a very welcomed change in the season of my own mind. Letting go of anger, and replacing it with love, love for myself and love for my child and even love for my husband… however distant he is these days. My marriage is over, I have accepted that. For now, that is the way things must be. I need to open my heart and my mind and although I can’t force myself to love him less, I can let him go, for all our sakes. When I let him go, I let go of anger and when I let go of the anger the pain of the betrayal lessens and I feel lighter, I sleep better, I am happier.

Bo and I are settling into our own daily rhythm. Finding our way together. Little hands guiding me through parks and pointing out birds and laughing at leaves. Little hands reminding me of the simple things. Little hands teaching me patience. Little hands showing me the way.

With a change in season we have taken on our first sickness of the season as our bodies adjust. I haven’t had a winter since I lived in Melbourne four years ago. Besides an unseasonably cold New South Wales summer when Bo was born, she has never lived through one. So as welcome as the change is, it is an adjustment for our bodies, that’s for sure. Fevers and tears and late nights rocking a sleepless babe have turned into late nights dealing with my own fevers whilst I watch her recovering body sleep soundly in our bed. Hot tea with lemon and ginger remind me of my dearest friend who left this world almost a year ago now. As I nurse my cup I am nostalgic for another time, a time where we danced together and nursed each other through tropical flues and drank ginger tea and told our secrets in our little bungalow by the beach. I can’t help but miss her a little more today. Cool air and fearless blue skies have always made me nostalgic.

I welcome the change in our physical world, but the change in the season of my mind is a more welcomed change. Accepting the challenges that single parenthood brings with open arms and letting go of the intensity that the summer brought to my family. Letting go and making space for happier times and cool air and good books and rainy days and long walks with crunchy leaves underfoot, her little hand in mine.

What do you love about a change in season?