A broken arm and a small menty b
Babies full time ain't for the faint-hearted
Today both children are in day care for the first time in eight weeks. Our educator broke her arm and seeing her today, I could have kissed her. I feel disloyal for saying the quiet part outloud - but, I love my kids so much and I don’t want to be with them all the time. And then I miss them when they’re not there and someone slap me outta this.
Phew.
Below, two months in snapshots, a flickering picture book. At the beginning, all that time ago, we had a week at a cousin’s mother’s house on the Queensland coast where winter seems more a cerebral term than an actual realisation. We wore shorts and sloppy sweaters and ran on hard sand into the ocean in July and Huck flew into our room on the first morning yelling it is a sunny day let’s go to the BEACH. Saffron ate a lot of sand and did a lot of exfoliating poos. After, then, many days at home juggling naps and tantrums and eating morning tea on the veranda in pale winter sun. The days drip by and then, it’s closer to the end of the year than not.
***
I dip my paddle into a sea of dying sunbeams, pink and brilliant. The skin of the water puckers, concentric layers arcing away from my paddleboard. It looks edible, marbled fairy floss striped with butter. I kneel rather than stand – the clouds in the water so perfectly meeting the sky that it makes me a bit dizzy, a whisper of vertigo: which way is up?
***
I buy the Shetland a rug and put it on in the lilac gloaming. The wind cuts through my coat, slipping from snow dusted mountains somewhere. It tastes like New Zealand. The sky is tumbled and vast and the birds are quiet in the chill, my breath an ashy plume. The horses eat, their crunching a songline through my life. No matter the day, the horses still need feeding.
***
The days are rollercoasters of need that only small children can churn. I wonder over my maternal instinct like a worry stone; the ice of my patience is wafer thin; I see the dark rushing water below. I’d love to complete a sentence in my own head, unpunctured by another request. A friend says that worrying about not being engaged enough probably means I am. Engaged enough, I mean.
***
I want the days to be warm and dry so I can garden. I want Saffron to walk so she can be outside more easily. I want her to stop putting stones in her mouth. I want to lie down. I’d like Huck to stop talking for a second. I want to go for a ride. I want to sweat. I want them to go to sleep. I want to squeeze their small sticky perfect bodies into mine and never let go.
***
It’s sleeting and I choose today of all days to buy four pullets on impulse. I’ve been meaning to buy some more chickens after our last lot were eaten, their happy presence and firm bodies reduced to a few feathers lilting in the grass. I’m so happy for our scraps to be useful again. They’re sweet and small and ugly in their downy coats. I’m looking forward to when they grow into their black green sheen. We make deep beds of oaten hay and fill the steel feeder with pellets and tell them spring is on its way. We thank them for the future eggs and Huck says goodnight my chickens. There’s contentment in feeding chickens.
***
12-hours a day of wiping benches and highchairs and faces. More snacks, another drink, another spill. Someone snatches, someone else is pissed. Looking for the privilege and beauty in the mundane and domestic, not always successful. I hear that the opposite of anxiety is creativity, but there seems no room. I try to forget about sweeping and write a line or two. Trying again to remember to change perspective through language – swapping out ‘have to’ for ‘get to’. I get to buy groceries, I get to cook dinner, I get to hang the washing on the line where it hangs like coloured skins, damp for days.
***
I sit on my bed and look out the window at paddocks that spill to the distant mountain range, their faces blushing coral in the alpenglow. The purple iris are blooming, silly things. The daffs are sunny exclamation marks of optimism. I’ve been sorting, clearing cupboards, ruthlessly putting things in bags for the tip or salvos. The visual clutter is white noise; I’m seeking control. I want to be able to find things with more ease; our stuff is owning us, spilling out, taking over my peripheral vision, stealing my time with demands to be tidied and maintained.
***
Adam’s making breakfast and I pause for a minute as I walk into the living room and look at the lovely light brushing through the window. All of our furniture is vintage - lol I bought it off FaceBook marketplace - and the jostling prints, colours and fabrics really please me. The garden is gorgeous outside and I pinch myself this is our home.
***
The babies are shiny seals in the bath, hair slicked back over clean scalps, poreless skin creamy as shells under the heat lamp and they laugh and laugh at each other, peals of giggles like bunting or small bells and I laugh at them and glimpse the beginning of something where they lean on each other. Where some of the spotlight of their gaze is turned away from me and on to the other and there is relaxation there, and time for other things. This here is all so very temporary. My shoulders drop. I lean in.
Recently
A story in the July issue of The Australian Women’s Weekly. The Sisterhood Project and its founder, Grace Larson. Amazing initiative, lovely to see it printed in such an iconic mag.
Thrilled to have written the cover story for the recent issue of Graziher Magazine. Ella Edwards is soooooo impressive and the whole issue is just stunning. Loved being part of it.
The last of the Agrifutures Rural Woman’s Award podcast series has aired this week on Life on the Land. What an extraordinary cohort of women. I interviewed four finalists, with my co-host Sammie O’Brien interviewing the other three. Such worthy stories and causes.
The list
I’ve had this on Audible for yonks and finally got around to listening whilst painting our laundry door this very lovely and rich turmeric. A lot of stuff I already knew, but practical and pragmatic and inspiring to make some simple changes. My favourite idea is that every action you take, you’re casting a vote on the sort of person you want to be. A perspective change when flipping something over to be value driven.
Loved this chat with Meg Mason and Ann Patchett. They have fabulous chemistry and their meet-cute is very cute. Meg speaks so eloquently about her literary pretentions and how good things where when she just accepted writing what came easily to her. Why are we suspicious and snobbish of the commercially successful? Also loved what Ann had to say about writing about joy and ordinary pleasures. As a bookshop owner, she says we have enough on the apocalypse now.
Guys if you need a holiday consider reading Fourth Wing. Sexy and rompy and just absolutely fun fun fun. Also my god some of the reviews I laughed so much I died. I whipped through the first two and it’s what I needed to get out of a reading slump. Pre-ordered the third out later this year!! Weeeeeeee!!!
Now I’m reading Hello Beautiful and it’s sublime. Paints sisterly adoration and competition so well. Insightful and lyrical.
I LOVED listening to The Faraway Horses. Even for non-horsey people, Buck’s story is extraordinary. I have hyper-focused on him and have also watched the documentary, also excellent, classic down-a-rabbit-hole vibes me. And the Horse Whisper, which he worked on. I have tumbled into horsemanship with gusto. I think because I’ve also just ridden and thought the work happened on their back and realising more and more that is not the case. Also, I can do groundwork in small snippets with children afoot. Am working my way through the TRT Method online, it’s really good. Enjoying it.
Love this recipe book. So yummy and simple pimple.
These are great trousers. I bought them half price when in Sydney a while ago. I like the cut and the fabric. Very high waist. Am really trying to think about intentionality behind shopping. My consumerism is rampant. Am trying to unsubscribe from all labels and channel my restlessness into reading rather than scrolling (and buying!).
Until next time, keep well.
Em xx
Always love your write-ups Em...Esp the Daffodils as exclamation marks of optimism X