Rejuvenating water
Good evening y’all. I am full of energy, coming off last night’s twelve hour sleep. Matt and I are just back from our one night get away. We have been married ten whole years. It seems a lot given that I am thirty years old (for three more days). Time away (without children) does us all good. It puts things in perspective and gives you the headspace to process it all. It seems silly that we found a hotel just ten minutes away, but we live in a gorgeous place. We didn’t waste limited time or gas. We left Saturday morning as Mary and Keith drove off to dance class with the girls. While Jacinta danced, we began paddling against a strong current up the Nambucca River from our hotel to Macksville.
Keith and Mary had been excitedly planning what to do with their weekend with the girls. What a blessing for Matt and I. The girls were very happy and in great care. Keith and Evie drove along the river at one point trying to find us, while Jacinta dragged Mary running across the highway to meet us on the other side of the river. Once Matt and I finally made it to Macksville, hungry and wet, we had a great lunch on the river with Mary and Keith and the girls. It was very hard rowing up until Macksville, rowing away from the ocean on a wide windy river against the current. Matt is not the gallant type to compliment me on what little good I did, he reminded me a few times of what a wimp I was. Luckily I have more of a sense of humor than I did ten years ago.
After a well earned lunch, we bid the girls goodbye again. We then canoed toward our home further up the river, branching off the Nambucca River to the Taylors Arm. We rowed by our neighbors’ houses, it was amazing. What a different view from the water, this is why we needed to go canoeing. We live on a river, yet we do not know the river. We can not see it from here, the mangroves and pine trees block our view. You can get such a different sense of place when flowing through it like water. When I taught African geography in the Steiner school, I remember taking the kids on a imaginary tour down the Zambezi River for this reason. But I have never canoed down the Zambezi River, I read about it in books.
But here we are, living on a river, the Taylors Arm. We ended our little river tour in an exciting discovery of our next door neighbor’s channel. We weaved our way through a windy little tree covered path, ducking under low branches just growing in awe every additional minute the little channel allowed us to row. WE LIVE HERE??? This was our major excitement. We followed ibis, ducks, and a bright blue and orange bird down the channel. The ducks were probably the very same ducks that swim on our dam and come up for seed when Keith feeds the chickens. There we were, on our one day away from the children, canoeing close enough to home that we could have yelled (very loud) to them, in this hidden water world that we will now know. But we didn’t yell to the children. We enjoyed it alone and excitedly planned how to share it with them.
Matt’s one stroke equaled two of mine, yes, but we were both sore and very happy after the trip. Wet and tired, we did not row back down the river to our hotel, but stretched as we stood on the side of our own road waiting to be picked up by the kind hotel man. Although Matt’s cold flared up, the rest of our little trip was lovely. We rested, enjoyed silence, slow uninterrupted conversation, and reading. Matt read in bed with a newspaper while I read Originally Blessed outside by the river watching the sun go down and birds going “home” to their “beds.”
I am loving Matt’s book now that it is finally in print. I didn’t get to read much of it pre-print. There are poems, works of art, interviews, essays, and short stories. This is my kind of book, never knowing what to expect on the next page: something terribly scientific, something esoteric, something so brainy it hurts, something so beautiful it makes me cry. Last night of particular interest was a watercolor print of the Dance of Creation, created by a woman who depicts and revels in the beauty of the pregnant woman’s body, representing the place where the Mysteries of Life and of Union incarnate. I have the same reverence for pregnant women, but never had the words or skills to express it. Another inspiring concept was the beauty of the Jewish belief of soul in newborns, the Hebrew word neshema means both breath and soul. In Sandy Sasso’s essay on the “Divine Fingerprint,” she says, “All children have a spiritual life. The breath of God is there from birth. What children seek is the language, the social and cultural context in which to give expression to that life, to form words out of breath, to allow their souls to sing.” Knowing the beauty of a newborn, I can identify much more easily with this concept, original blessing. Original sin, a concept that most Christians believe is in the Bible is written nowhere in the Bible. It is made up. I am shocked to find this out, having grown up thinking I needed to be saved from the human natural tendency toward sin and evil. People in power do benefit from fear and guilt. I suppose this would be a good reason to keep up the myth that we are born sinful. Lucky the Jew brought up with the breath of God in them from day one.
We saw a full moon, enjoyed meals cooked by others, and long uninterrupted sleep. We slept in later than we have in years, 9:40! I had promised Jess that I would collect some treasures for her so after breakfast I went for a nice long walk on a shelly beach. Matt was feeling sick and quite happy to watch the waves from the car. One night away was all we needed to rejuvenate. So home we went to play with our sweet girls and relieve and thank our kind and exhausted parents/inlaws.
Last week was a pretty normal week, but with the added bonus that Matt was home again. He had a very busy first week back at work. In addition to the normal busyness after missing two weeks of work, there was a viral outbreak at the regional hospital which pushed a few very sick people over the edge and killed them. In addition to the sadness and chaos, it gave Matt even more new clients in hospital, requiring gloves and gowns for all visitors. Matt had more work close to home this week, so he surprised the girls and I by beating us home a few times. He also has a new camera which inspires him to stand around taking photos of everything, certainly of his cute little girls. Tonight he was out in the dark, taking pictures of the bright moon while wiggling the camera, making funny designs of moving moonlight. Besides his fun little girls to entertain and his new camera, Matt has also been enjoying the Olympics. I am watching some gymnastics this time around. Jacinta and Genevieve enjoy it too.
Typically, I say more about our girls than I do of Matt and I. But this week, there were a few extra moments of adult life to celebrate. On Friday I went a volunteer orientation with Anglicare and began learning about work with refugees. It was only two and half hours long but very powerful and enlightening. They spoke of cultural differences, even mocked themselves a bit. They spoke of anti-racism, of unfair white privilege, and a duty to give back to the community. Although I am preparing to begin work with people who have truly made it through hell, it was an uplifting time. It was like meeting an old friend, a community in which people are focusing on others and not only on ourselves, our children and what we eat.
I suppose this is what most of us do in parenthood, turn inward. I had planned on doing it differently from day one, but being politically clueless and churchless in a new country and new culture I lost focus. The will is there, we want to bring the girls up thinking less of themselves and more of others. Matt works in social service but the girls have not yet been able to see anything he does. Here is an opportunity. We shall see how much they can be involved in this particular effort. Genevieve came along to this meeting and rolled around playing and eventually fell asleep on my back. But for the time being, time with newly emigrated refugees will just be me, however seldom I have the opportunity.
Although I had more time alone this week, I had a lot of lovely moments with my girlies. We spent time visiting with new and “old” friends, playing and singing in French, planting seeds, picking flowers and getting wet and dirty in the garden. We drew pictures, created with play dough and read stories. Genevieve can actually pay attention to stories now, she likes to pick books off the shelf and bring them to me. “Sowry?” She loves animal books. Whenever she sees a wolf in a book she says, “Awhooo le loup (wolf in French)!” At night she chooses a book to read too and she sits with us all while we read both bedtime stories, if they are both short. She points out every item she knows and names them. It is like a chant as she is falling asleep or taking a bath, she recites the names of all of the little people in her life. “Jinta, Kai, baby (Paige), Lilly, Ayne (Aidan), Wohwy (Rory), Enwi (Henry), Aahni (Alani), Bella.” The other night she had been asleep for ten minutes and started reciting. The first name she said was my sister’s name, Lecia. That really made me smile. It’s such an amazing time to be with a child and I am saddened by the impossibility of being close to my parents and sister. But hearing dream language: middle of night stream of consciousness oozing out of my daughter’s mouth, my far away family was in it.
For you who I love so dearly but can not be with us, I will draw you a picture of this little girl, almost eighteen months old. Genevieve’s hair is often up in a little fountain-like pony tail on top of her head. She pulls it out if given half a chance so her hair is often in her face because I will not cut her bangs. The back is always scruffy because she rubs her head on her pillow while she sleeps, or at least I assume this is why! No mater how much it is brushed, it takes a few hours before it will lie flat on her head. I can not keep up with her grubbiness, as she is always into something: pens, markers, paint, play dough, dirt or food.
Genevieve is often standing on a chair at the table, looking out the window for cows, ducks, turkeys, chickens and birdies. The other days she named off all the birds she knew while sitting in Matt’s arms. She was intent on telling him a very important story, “ibis, pehkin (pelican), seagull, eagle, duck, chicken, roosta,” nodding after each bird. If not looking out the window, she’ll be reaching for something she shouldn’t have. This evening she left us reading stories in bed and came back with a piece of cornbread that she had nabbed off the table. She is surely resourceful, knows where to get what she wants. She can open the fridge now, a small problem. Now she comes out carrying a tray of paints and paintbrushes and asks to paint. I am not often in the mood to make this great of a mess. So she goes back and pulls out the play dough. Good thing she is easily steered off course, but not without giving the look, a furrowed brow and serious stern eyes. Even strangers comment on what a great nasty “look” she gives.
Jacinta used to hand out smiles right and left. She is a bit choosier nowadays, but generally has a happy demeanor. She sings so often Matt jokes about “Jacinta’s life, the musical.” Thursday night she came along to choir, and joined in as usual on the vocal warm-ups. She closely watches the lips of a few choir members and imitates. On the la la las, her tongue moves in and out of her mouth so fast that I can not even sing, laughing as silent as possible at my lizard daughter. Later on in the week she did these vocal exercises in the car. I started to sing along and she turned it into a game. “Try to sing what I sing and I will keep changing.” She moved up and down the scale changing from one pattern to the other, singing beautifully. We even sang in harmony for a few lines, one third apart. Matt took the girls to town late this afternoon. Jacinta had been a bit tired and edgy since we returned from our little trip. She sang herself into a different mood though, chanting all the different reasons she was happy while they walked through the town. She sang the refrain over and over, “I’m so happy today because the nectarine tree is fruiting.”
Jacinta had a busy social week with a visit to a friends’ farm and French on Monday, preschool on Tuesday, visits with new friends on Wednesday and Friday and playgroup and choir on Thursday. Tuesday was Grandparents Day at preschool so she had Mary and Keith as guests for morning tea. She did find some alone time, swimming in the bath, drawing and making “goop” outside. A new pass time arrived in the mail as a late birthday gift for the girls. My friend Carrie finds the most interesting gifts around. She surprises us with things we never would have thought to buy or even know existed like tricky wooden spinning tops, an American Girl’s Guide to lost arts that little girls did hundreds of years ago, and now the latest, paper dolls, and the Game of Graces. This is a game with four long wooden sticks and ribbon wrapped wooden hoops to toss between two people and Jacinta LOVES it. She practices catching the hoop on her own but also loves playing with Matt and I.
So we are all enjoying life here in Macksville. The fire is still burning, the moon is shining bright, and you are all probably just waking on the other side of the world. Enjoy the warm sun today and the bright moon tonight.
Peace,
Shana
Keith and Mary had been excitedly planning what to do with their weekend with the girls. What a blessing for Matt and I. The girls were very happy and in great care. Keith and Evie drove along the river at one point trying to find us, while Jacinta dragged Mary running across the highway to meet us on the other side of the river. Once Matt and I finally made it to Macksville, hungry and wet, we had a great lunch on the river with Mary and Keith and the girls. It was very hard rowing up until Macksville, rowing away from the ocean on a wide windy river against the current. Matt is not the gallant type to compliment me on what little good I did, he reminded me a few times of what a wimp I was. Luckily I have more of a sense of humor than I did ten years ago.
After a well earned lunch, we bid the girls goodbye again. We then canoed toward our home further up the river, branching off the Nambucca River to the Taylors Arm. We rowed by our neighbors’ houses, it was amazing. What a different view from the water, this is why we needed to go canoeing. We live on a river, yet we do not know the river. We can not see it from here, the mangroves and pine trees block our view. You can get such a different sense of place when flowing through it like water. When I taught African geography in the Steiner school, I remember taking the kids on a imaginary tour down the Zambezi River for this reason. But I have never canoed down the Zambezi River, I read about it in books.
But here we are, living on a river, the Taylors Arm. We ended our little river tour in an exciting discovery of our next door neighbor’s channel. We weaved our way through a windy little tree covered path, ducking under low branches just growing in awe every additional minute the little channel allowed us to row. WE LIVE HERE??? This was our major excitement. We followed ibis, ducks, and a bright blue and orange bird down the channel. The ducks were probably the very same ducks that swim on our dam and come up for seed when Keith feeds the chickens. There we were, on our one day away from the children, canoeing close enough to home that we could have yelled (very loud) to them, in this hidden water world that we will now know. But we didn’t yell to the children. We enjoyed it alone and excitedly planned how to share it with them.
Matt’s one stroke equaled two of mine, yes, but we were both sore and very happy after the trip. Wet and tired, we did not row back down the river to our hotel, but stretched as we stood on the side of our own road waiting to be picked up by the kind hotel man. Although Matt’s cold flared up, the rest of our little trip was lovely. We rested, enjoyed silence, slow uninterrupted conversation, and reading. Matt read in bed with a newspaper while I read Originally Blessed outside by the river watching the sun go down and birds going “home” to their “beds.”
I am loving Matt’s book now that it is finally in print. I didn’t get to read much of it pre-print. There are poems, works of art, interviews, essays, and short stories. This is my kind of book, never knowing what to expect on the next page: something terribly scientific, something esoteric, something so brainy it hurts, something so beautiful it makes me cry. Last night of particular interest was a watercolor print of the Dance of Creation, created by a woman who depicts and revels in the beauty of the pregnant woman’s body, representing the place where the Mysteries of Life and of Union incarnate. I have the same reverence for pregnant women, but never had the words or skills to express it. Another inspiring concept was the beauty of the Jewish belief of soul in newborns, the Hebrew word neshema means both breath and soul. In Sandy Sasso’s essay on the “Divine Fingerprint,” she says, “All children have a spiritual life. The breath of God is there from birth. What children seek is the language, the social and cultural context in which to give expression to that life, to form words out of breath, to allow their souls to sing.” Knowing the beauty of a newborn, I can identify much more easily with this concept, original blessing. Original sin, a concept that most Christians believe is in the Bible is written nowhere in the Bible. It is made up. I am shocked to find this out, having grown up thinking I needed to be saved from the human natural tendency toward sin and evil. People in power do benefit from fear and guilt. I suppose this would be a good reason to keep up the myth that we are born sinful. Lucky the Jew brought up with the breath of God in them from day one.
We saw a full moon, enjoyed meals cooked by others, and long uninterrupted sleep. We slept in later than we have in years, 9:40! I had promised Jess that I would collect some treasures for her so after breakfast I went for a nice long walk on a shelly beach. Matt was feeling sick and quite happy to watch the waves from the car. One night away was all we needed to rejuvenate. So home we went to play with our sweet girls and relieve and thank our kind and exhausted parents/inlaws.
Last week was a pretty normal week, but with the added bonus that Matt was home again. He had a very busy first week back at work. In addition to the normal busyness after missing two weeks of work, there was a viral outbreak at the regional hospital which pushed a few very sick people over the edge and killed them. In addition to the sadness and chaos, it gave Matt even more new clients in hospital, requiring gloves and gowns for all visitors. Matt had more work close to home this week, so he surprised the girls and I by beating us home a few times. He also has a new camera which inspires him to stand around taking photos of everything, certainly of his cute little girls. Tonight he was out in the dark, taking pictures of the bright moon while wiggling the camera, making funny designs of moving moonlight. Besides his fun little girls to entertain and his new camera, Matt has also been enjoying the Olympics. I am watching some gymnastics this time around. Jacinta and Genevieve enjoy it too.
Typically, I say more about our girls than I do of Matt and I. But this week, there were a few extra moments of adult life to celebrate. On Friday I went a volunteer orientation with Anglicare and began learning about work with refugees. It was only two and half hours long but very powerful and enlightening. They spoke of cultural differences, even mocked themselves a bit. They spoke of anti-racism, of unfair white privilege, and a duty to give back to the community. Although I am preparing to begin work with people who have truly made it through hell, it was an uplifting time. It was like meeting an old friend, a community in which people are focusing on others and not only on ourselves, our children and what we eat.
I suppose this is what most of us do in parenthood, turn inward. I had planned on doing it differently from day one, but being politically clueless and churchless in a new country and new culture I lost focus. The will is there, we want to bring the girls up thinking less of themselves and more of others. Matt works in social service but the girls have not yet been able to see anything he does. Here is an opportunity. We shall see how much they can be involved in this particular effort. Genevieve came along to this meeting and rolled around playing and eventually fell asleep on my back. But for the time being, time with newly emigrated refugees will just be me, however seldom I have the opportunity.
Although I had more time alone this week, I had a lot of lovely moments with my girlies. We spent time visiting with new and “old” friends, playing and singing in French, planting seeds, picking flowers and getting wet and dirty in the garden. We drew pictures, created with play dough and read stories. Genevieve can actually pay attention to stories now, she likes to pick books off the shelf and bring them to me. “Sowry?” She loves animal books. Whenever she sees a wolf in a book she says, “Awhooo le loup (wolf in French)!” At night she chooses a book to read too and she sits with us all while we read both bedtime stories, if they are both short. She points out every item she knows and names them. It is like a chant as she is falling asleep or taking a bath, she recites the names of all of the little people in her life. “Jinta, Kai, baby (Paige), Lilly, Ayne (Aidan), Wohwy (Rory), Enwi (Henry), Aahni (Alani), Bella.” The other night she had been asleep for ten minutes and started reciting. The first name she said was my sister’s name, Lecia. That really made me smile. It’s such an amazing time to be with a child and I am saddened by the impossibility of being close to my parents and sister. But hearing dream language: middle of night stream of consciousness oozing out of my daughter’s mouth, my far away family was in it.
For you who I love so dearly but can not be with us, I will draw you a picture of this little girl, almost eighteen months old. Genevieve’s hair is often up in a little fountain-like pony tail on top of her head. She pulls it out if given half a chance so her hair is often in her face because I will not cut her bangs. The back is always scruffy because she rubs her head on her pillow while she sleeps, or at least I assume this is why! No mater how much it is brushed, it takes a few hours before it will lie flat on her head. I can not keep up with her grubbiness, as she is always into something: pens, markers, paint, play dough, dirt or food.
Genevieve is often standing on a chair at the table, looking out the window for cows, ducks, turkeys, chickens and birdies. The other days she named off all the birds she knew while sitting in Matt’s arms. She was intent on telling him a very important story, “ibis, pehkin (pelican), seagull, eagle, duck, chicken, roosta,” nodding after each bird. If not looking out the window, she’ll be reaching for something she shouldn’t have. This evening she left us reading stories in bed and came back with a piece of cornbread that she had nabbed off the table. She is surely resourceful, knows where to get what she wants. She can open the fridge now, a small problem. Now she comes out carrying a tray of paints and paintbrushes and asks to paint. I am not often in the mood to make this great of a mess. So she goes back and pulls out the play dough. Good thing she is easily steered off course, but not without giving the look, a furrowed brow and serious stern eyes. Even strangers comment on what a great nasty “look” she gives.
Jacinta used to hand out smiles right and left. She is a bit choosier nowadays, but generally has a happy demeanor. She sings so often Matt jokes about “Jacinta’s life, the musical.” Thursday night she came along to choir, and joined in as usual on the vocal warm-ups. She closely watches the lips of a few choir members and imitates. On the la la las, her tongue moves in and out of her mouth so fast that I can not even sing, laughing as silent as possible at my lizard daughter. Later on in the week she did these vocal exercises in the car. I started to sing along and she turned it into a game. “Try to sing what I sing and I will keep changing.” She moved up and down the scale changing from one pattern to the other, singing beautifully. We even sang in harmony for a few lines, one third apart. Matt took the girls to town late this afternoon. Jacinta had been a bit tired and edgy since we returned from our little trip. She sang herself into a different mood though, chanting all the different reasons she was happy while they walked through the town. She sang the refrain over and over, “I’m so happy today because the nectarine tree is fruiting.”
Jacinta had a busy social week with a visit to a friends’ farm and French on Monday, preschool on Tuesday, visits with new friends on Wednesday and Friday and playgroup and choir on Thursday. Tuesday was Grandparents Day at preschool so she had Mary and Keith as guests for morning tea. She did find some alone time, swimming in the bath, drawing and making “goop” outside. A new pass time arrived in the mail as a late birthday gift for the girls. My friend Carrie finds the most interesting gifts around. She surprises us with things we never would have thought to buy or even know existed like tricky wooden spinning tops, an American Girl’s Guide to lost arts that little girls did hundreds of years ago, and now the latest, paper dolls, and the Game of Graces. This is a game with four long wooden sticks and ribbon wrapped wooden hoops to toss between two people and Jacinta LOVES it. She practices catching the hoop on her own but also loves playing with Matt and I.
So we are all enjoying life here in Macksville. The fire is still burning, the moon is shining bright, and you are all probably just waking on the other side of the world. Enjoy the warm sun today and the bright moon tonight.
Peace,
Shana
posted by Matt & Shana & Jacinta & Genevieve Henry at
11:55 PM
1 Comments:
hello shanna, it's celia, how has your summer been, i haven't been checking in on your blog lately because i have been in cincinnati ohio with my dad and sister, my dad grew up there and he found a long lost friend that he knew when he was little, it was a lot of fun,
how is you family, have you hade a nice summer? i can't imagine how big the girls are getting to be.
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