I see beauty

Good evening. Another Thanksgiving has gone by here in Australia with no turkey on the table. I’m sure the bush turkeys in our backyard are relieved, once again. I hope you spent the day in good company, grateful for abundance peace, and hope. We actually celebrated Thanksgiving on Monday and had all of our friends here for a feast. This is my third Thanksgiving in Australia, and perhaps the best because we had all of our friends here to celebrate our gratitude for the earth, her abundance and for each other. Usually I just spend the day missing my family and wishing I could be home for pumpkin pie and falling asleep on the couch next to my sister while mom plays the piano. But this time I organized a big party. Everyone brought vines and flowers to make crowns and door wreaths. My French class children acted out a prayer of gratitude (in English) to use as a blessing just before the meal. They proudly sang their French blessing for the adults first though. The food was mostly local and all very tasty, but I had to buy cranberries from America to share this very important Americanism. I actually hydrated Craisins and added spices to make the sauce. I dug up a few early potatoes and baked them, along with a sweet potato pie and baked polenta. The weather was perfect, otherwise it would have been a bit cramped inside. The children ran their little hearts out, until it grew so dark they could no longer see their own feet.

I love watching the girls fall asleep after a night like that, toppling over like a tower of blocks. I wish I could fall asleep like them without a care in the world, without a list of unfinished tasks rolling through my head, without plans for tomorrow, without regret for my last harsh words with Jacinta. Don’t get me wrong, I do sleep pretty carelessly when my head hits the pillow. The hard task is getting to the pillow and letting the day end. Matt and I both try to make our days last too long and suffer each morning. The poor children wake up so joyfully and meet such dreadfully tired parents. “I hungwy mawmmy,” Genevieve pleads to me while I lay in bed begrudging her wakefulness. But the way she says that phrase, it’s still so cute. I have to laugh, which rouses me enough to drag my body out of bed. This morning Jacinta screamed at 5am, “MOMMY! MOMMY! There’s a mozzy in here and he’s bothering me.” I couldn’t get rid of the determined mosquito so we set up in another room. The mouse in the lounge room kept Jacinta from falling asleep again. By 6am, Genevieve called out, “Mommy?? Come get me!” After I fetched her, Jacinta entertained while I went back to sleep with the two girls crawling around my exhausted body. By 6:25 Jacinta asked, “Mommy, can we ask daddy to play Candyland?” A sweet smile stretched across my face, “What a good idea,” and they were off, to jump on daddy. They granted me a few extra minutes of sleep until Genevieve came back with her earnest face, “Mawmmy, I hungwy.”

This Genevieve character, she is so much fun to watch as she becomes her own little person. She likes to talk about pain and mishaps. She talks and sings most of the time and when left with nothing to say, she brings up old bumps and bruises with the most dramatic face, poor child carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders. “Evie..tick on head…take out…” This happened about three weeks ago. “Oyster shell river…poor Evie…” This happened maybe three weeks ago too. “Mommy…cut arm….ooohhhh.” She will search for my cuts to show them to others, “roll up sleeve mommy.” “Maxine…knock ova mailbox.” My friend backed in to our mailbox the other day and my one year old tells anyone that will listen. Perhaps she is at a melancholic moment given how long it is taking her eye teeth to come out. I keep hoping they will pop out this week, prior to our flight across the Pacific.
Although she harps on pain and fights to protect her possessions with all her might, Evie smiles, laughs and loves a lot too. She still lists off all the friends she loves. She watches the big kids closely and remembers everything they do. She sings a few songs on her own now. “Twinkle Twinkle Little Stah,” is one of my favorites. “Jingle Bells” is a new favorite for which she has to find a bell to shake while she sings. If I don’t sing her to sleep, she sings, “Fais Dodo” to herself in her cot. “She has been singing Baa baa Black Sheep for long enough to substitute the words herself, changing the recipient of the wool each time. Matt took her on a drive tonight and said she did some new improvisation, “Baa baa black sheep Have you any wool? Not yet,” and that was the end. They were looking at the clouds in the sky and Genevieve said, “Daddy? I see beauty.” Awwhhhh…we are proud parents. Children are expert beauty seekers.

Jacinta had her last day of preschool this week. She walked in proudly carrying a gift for her teachers, a bean mosaic in the shape of a rainbow. Later on she told the tale of how “the big girls came and wanted to know all about it!” Next year she will move up to the “big room.” This year she and her buddy Lilly are still in the little room where they have naps and cuddly teachers. But they have grown, what a change in just ten months. Even so, when we turned up to our Togolese friends’ house, the bright shiny big sister swooped Jacinta up and tied her on to her back carrying her around like a baby proudly saying, “THIS is how we do it in Africa. Come on Genevieve, I carry you too.” Later on Jacinta called me to the other room, “Look mom! Watch them!” The 12 year old was unbraiding her friends’ hair, taking out each of the hundreds of tiny braids one by one, while her little brothers . “What are they doing?” Jacinta was in awe, to say the least. Whereas Genevieve was chanting, “Car mom! Car mom!” to leave ASAP, Jacinta did not want to leave.”

I feel very lucky to be able to offer the girls a broader perspective on family/social life because normal school (even preschool age) cliques can be rough to get through. These little boys may whack each other more than we have ever seen, and their older siblings may have more control over them than I could ever handle (as the younger sister), but they don’t question an order and they aren’t catty like Jacinta’s girlfriends. They don’t use words as much, actions speak louder than words. It could be a gender thing, or a cultural thing but Jacinta’s friends are already using exclusion to hurt each other, to conquer. I remember this about girls and I hate it. I wonder if it crosses cultural boundaries and why. One of my main goals to teach the girls is extreme inclusion. Unfortunately I can not teach their friends nor protect them from the pain of exclusion. It’s just one of those painful lessons Jacinta is already learning.

Matt reminds me that all we can do is build their confidence in whatever skills they seem to love. The hope is that when they encounter the negativity of certain children, they will be filled with enough confidence in their own bag of tricks that they don’t suffer the blow. So on we sing, plant and create. We made beeswax candles again the other day and Jacinta stayed with it long enough to really learn the art. She loves to master things and do them well. The girls are very lucky to be part of an adult choir, welcomed by ten adults every Thursday night. They sing as much as they can, soaking up every word while they distract the choir members. They all pay as much attention as possible while smiling and remembering their own children at this age. Friday night we had a choir party and sang for our families. The girls were the only little people in a crowd of thirty adults, they love this. Jacinta tapped along with tapping sticks and actually stood up and sang with us for a lot of the songs, surprising us all with what she had soaked up while playing with blocks at rehearsal. Genevieve danced and shook maracas, hung on different ladies’ skirts, (nearly pulling mine down a few times), and ran from room to room soaking up the stardom of being a cute little girl. Matt recorded it all for us. I just tried to focus and not laugh too hard during my solos at Genevieve climbing through everyone’s legs.

Our choir has not performed for almost two years, but when it rains it pours. Saturday morning we had another “gig” at a humble little outdoor festival. Our director couldn’t be there so Terry and I took turns leading. It was really nice and we actually recruited a few new men. Jacinta had a chance to sing with us and show her friends what she does on Thursday nights. It’s an inspiring gathering called Art in the Park, but “artist” being used to describe anyone who creates and wants to share their passion, not necessarily sell it. So a few spinners brought their wheels, a soap maker brought wool and taught kids how to felt wool onto soap and create a good scrubber. One dad taught kite making and there was a puppet show. Guitarists played music for us, a few good cooks sold food to everyone. A carpenter taught people how to work with wood. With all this activity, our children still found another source of entertainment: running across open fields and digging in sticky sap. The sap stuck on their fingers then prevented them from doing any other activities. Oh well. They had fun and Matt took a lot of pictures.

So now Matt is off for two weeks. Right now he is celebrating his freedom by watching Team America and laughing himself silly. He played with the girls all day, went for a nice long kayak ride, and just finished the dishes. It is nice to have him home and see him so relaxed. I suppose when you only have two days a week at home you try to smash more in, but two weeks, that’s good.

The girls and I leave for the US in six days. I am stuck in indecision as to what to do next. My biggest questions are: how much can I sanely carry and what can I do to the garden to prepare it for my absence? There is much to be done, but no need to stress about it. It will all happen. Surely I won’t get much sleep on my last night here, but adrenaline will carry me through. Matt plans to take the girls out a bit this week, which will be lovely.

For now, I bid you goodnight. I will write again from Chicago. Happy Thanksgiving. And please ask Santa for snow because the girls are ready for it! Jacinta was telling my mom on the phone, “I haven’t seen snow since I was a baby…and Genevieve has never seen snow! I know it is going to be colder than the freezer, but I just don’t know how much colder.” Interesting…

Take care,
Shana

Beautiful Muddy Waters

Good evening (: Health is restored here as well as our busyness. I hope this letter finds you all in good health also. My stepfather had another surgery to unblock his arteries and restore circulation in his legs. It went well and he is on the mend, so we are all relieved and thankful. When I look back at the week, I can’t seem to process all that has passed through my hands, heart and mind. I also can’t see how I am still awake, but I am. In addition to really needing a couple of hours devoted to processing the week, Matt just brought me a cup of coffee and three little squares of chocolate.

Matt looks forward to his weekend chocolate, but not as much as a break from work. He still spends a lot of time on the road and in the company of unwell people. He has learned a lot more than I’ll ever know about the end of life and about disease. His shoulder has been causing him pain, but last night it eased up. He says it might have been my comfrey ointment, which of course makes me happy. But it also could have been chance. He and Keith spent some time this past week recycling timber from our neighbor’s house which is being reconstructed, lugging loads with the tractor to our massive timber pile. They are both feeling pretty lucky to have scored such good timber and plan to use it on numerous projects. Matt will soon dive into major changes in our house, the girls’ bedroom, sizing down our bathroom, and enlarging our lounge room. He only has one week of work left before his little vacation, just before we leave for the US. He wants to get in some extra time with us before we leave him to update the house.

While Matt played with the girls inside our cozy house, I started out the week with a few hours to myself in the garden, in the pouring rain. Typically I like gardening in the rain, but I was still not feeling 100% so I stayed in the shed, the messy garden shed, surrounded by mess that could have been sorted months ago. The garlic had to be harvested this week to save it from rotting in the ground from all the moisture. To store garlic you need to hang it in an airy place, free from sun and moisture, hence, the shed. Thus the impetus to clean up the piles of cardboard boxes, cracked hoses, rolls of weed cloth, dirty jars, messy tools, piles of fruit fly bags, newspaper rolls of old seeds, cracked pots and stacks of good pots. I find it hard to summon the energy to do something as cleansing as getting rid of junk when I see hundreds of other little tasks out in the dirt that might grow into food. Now I look at my clean shed which has room for people and garlic and am grateful for the rain which made me clean it and harvest the garlic early.

Harvesting root crops is definitely my favorite garden job, as it is all hidden until the moment you dig it up. You can not put it back in the ground if you don’t like what you see, what you see is what you get. I planted eighty garlic cloves about five months ago and did relatively little for them. Tuesday, Genevieve and I dressed up in our raincoats and took our tools down to the terrace garden. She played with the garlic plants after I dug them up and threw them in a pile. She picked off all of the garlic babies (tiny garlic cloves stuck on the bottom of each head of garlic) and sorted them. We left a lot of them in the garden bed, which is nice because in two years, magically, each little baby will grow a full head of garlic without any help from me. As the rain dripped down our foreheads, I celebrated the massive heads of garlic, a years worth of garlic. Genevieve tried to dig too and sang the few rain songs she knew, “raining pouring old man snoring,” and a little French rain song about a frog.

Later that day I picked Jacinta and Lily up from preschool. They had been inside all day and were really happy to come down and help me clean, braid and hang the garlic in the newly cleaned shed. I think the gathering instinct comes naturally to many of us because they entertained themselves for over an hour collecting garlic babies, hoarding them, counting them, and always searching for more. The big girls were delighted to take part in the harvest and process of such a good crop and to have a role to play in the process. They also enjoyed being outside, so close to the rain, yet warm and dry under shelter. We had such a lovely time that I lost my mind, high on the rare occurrence that the three girls play peacefully together. So we invited Lily to sleep over and keep the party going. All in all, it was fine, Lily was lovely but Jacinta was too tired for change so she had a long tantrum about which pajamas to wear. After this, the girls had fun together. I didn’t get much sleep, but this was actually quite humorous. I was woken only by the girls kicking each other in their sleep, (the response being separation) and by their shouts wanting to know where the other had gone. Genevieve woke with all the commotion. Matt and I both lost sleep but for me, it was pretty funny because I could laugh at my own insanity. Matt didn’t find it all so humorous, but dealt with my silly spontaneity. It is my nature to make quick decisions and believe that all will go well, without a worry in the world that something could go wrong. I haven’t had any real problems yet, and haven’t suffered a life of anxiety or fear. I am grateful, but also know that good energy plus a little bit of common sense usually generate a good outcome. A first sleepover isn’t too big of a risk though.

The rains left us alone by Wednesday with a sticky heat that just made you want to live in water. We had swimming lessons that day, but this was inside in an overheated pool with chlorine and white walls. Jacinta is learning how to do the crawl and can do a few strokes on her own now. Genevieve, on the other hand, cries for me or Matt the whole time, which isn’t working out. No big deal. Thursday afternoon, we needed to swim so I convinced Jacinta that we should try out swimming in the dam, since the water has started looking clear. She and Evie wore their life jackets and clung on to me at first, grossed out by the mud below but in awe of the tiny fish surrounding us. After a while, Jacinta was in heaven, swimming off on her own, liberated by this wet paradise that is our backyard. We all swam out to the middle, chasing a seed pod on the surface of the water, but couldn’t make it as far as the lily pads. Today Matt came down with us and crossed the dam with her so she could smell the purple water lily while I stayed with Genevieve. By the end we were sitting in the mud, throwing mud balls out in the water, jumping in the mud like frogs. We floated on our backs and watched the clouds. Jacinta made up a shadow chasing game. We swam across the dam a few times practicing Jacinta’s new skills until our fingers and toes turned into prunes. This was beautiful for me, as I find pond swimming one of the most liberating places to be. Swimming in a small confined body of water, I hover above the unknown brown bottom, with nothing to gaze upon but the surface of the water, trees, plants, birds, and sky. Jacinta was liberated by the mud. She has learned to enjoy the muck, the beauty of a swimming hole in your back yard and has a new motivation to learn to swim.

Matt paddled the girls and I all the way to town this morning. It was our longest trip as a family, perhaps 45 minutes long, yet the most serene. It was early and the tide was high, the water was very still. We saw a few pelicans and a few boats. Going under the two bridges was pretty exciting for the girls, Genevieve requesting, “again??” after we had rowed under the last bridge. We made it to town without the usual whining and had coffee, tea, croissants and bananas on the riverbank. The girls played on the inundated dock, as it was high tide. Kind Mary and Keith brought us the car, so I could take the girls to dance and Matt could row back solo. It’s a hard life (:

Speaking of a hard life, a true hard life, we visited our Togolese refugee friends this week. The mother was glued to her cell phone all day long, trying in vain to reach her mother back in Togo who had left her a message that morning. This image is stuck in my head: her inexperience with technology, her ability to stare at the phone in silence for so long, hoping somehow she would get through, her sadness, her fear, her anxiety, her ignorance of why her mother would call this day after 7 months had gone by since she left Africa. Given the state of the mother, the girls and I played with the boys, who seemed to be used to her preoccupation. The three year old was in his own world, jumping off every bit of furniture he could find (even the shelves and the keyboard) imitating different animals. This was a good ice breaker for my girls. Jacinta observed and giggled. Genevieve eventually joined in and chased the monkey. We brought a truck to share and as Jacinta got it out of the bag, she said, “We should give this to you, you like it so much.” We played the organ together (another kind donation in this house full of strange items), then read some books in English. I kept turning off the television so they would stop zoning out. After a while, they decided that we were more entertaining anyway, luckily because they cold easily climb the shelves and turn it back on. Jacinta read one of the simple books for us all, humbled by the chance to help teach. At one point she was shocked because the older boy said something in English. It turns out they know quite a bit, they were just holding back because they didn’t know us. After the books, the boys took us to their sunny backyard to place the potted vegetables we had brought for them. They proudly showed us the one tomato plant they had. Jacinta asked the oldest boy for a shovel. He nodded knowingly and brought us a scrubbing brush. We giggled and asked again. This time he came back with laundry soap, then a bucket of water. Finally we went with him to find a crayon. Jacinta drew him a shovel. He nodded, went and asked his mother and returned with a “No.” So we left the plants in pots, as planned and went to the beach.

Imagine arriving at the ocean for the first time, never having seen waves before. You are in a new land with a bunch of strangers, with a lot of strange rules. This white woman puts on cream and asks you to hold her hand and walk towards this vast body of water. I suppose it would depend on your age, but these little boys were curious, excited and completely trusting of the strength of my hands. They each had one. We didn’t go deeper than an inch or two, but the waves came up to about 8 inches a few times. They held on for dear life, exhilarated, but trying to figure out how to get a good hold when Genevieve and the two boys each needed a hand. Jacinta was in her own world in the sand making prints, playing with rocks, jumping in the water. For once, she was the most confident little person in the water. By the end, she silently showed them how to sit in the water and let the little waves roll them over.

Next we went to the jetty for fish and chips. As the food arrived, Genevieve fell asleep. The children were all very hungry. Jacinta didn’t like her fish, as usual. While he continually stockpiled his plate, the older boy quickly offered to take everything she didn’t want. Jacinta happily stacked his plate every time I handed her a new piece of fish to try. There was a small voice inside my head saying, “He shouldn’t take all that, he hasn’t even finished what is on his plate.” But Jacinta’s inside voice of inspired generosity won. Their mom bought all of the children icy poles (popsicles) while Evie was sleeping. Jacinta and the two boys sat on the rocks with no space between them, savoring the sweet ice while Genevieve slowly woke and ate her fish. Evie finished her meal just as the older children were finishing their dessert. Jacinta offered her little sister the rest of her icy pole. Then the five year old followed suit. Then the three year old followed suit. This was normal for the boys, sharing. But for Jacinta, this was big. Usually it’s like pulling teeth to get her to do this. But this time, her initial voluntary giving started a chain reaction of giving. Genevieve sat down with the three older children and allowed the youngest boy to put his arm around her while she savored her lemony ice and they watched the boats. It feels so good to share, everyone knows that. In our culture, this seems to be a lesson that takes years to learn.
Even if this generosity only comes out once in a while in my girls, I’ll take it, smile deeply each time and just hope for more.

I suppose their generosity will come out more and more as I give them more freedom. We went to a birthday party this week. Knowing there would be piles of sweets, I told Jacinta that she could make her own food choices given that she knows which things make her body healthy and which things don’t really make her feel well, but are just for fun. She slowly tasted each thing, resisting the urge to ask permission each time. She shined. When the piñata was smashed she grabbed one little bag of gummy candy and ran away to show me what she had gotten. She didn’t stay and pick up the piles of other things she could have grabbed, but relished her prize. A few minutes later she proudly told me that she had given Genevieve a red one (she loves red).

Jacinta is learning generosity as am I. I am also unlearning dogma. Candy is full of crap, yes, but I must let her live in this world, and live joyfully. So to celebrate her new food freedom, we created a gingerbread house on Friday night. We all worked together after Matt came home from work, gluing the walls together with sugary frosting and covering the house in lollies. It was very exciting seeing it all come together, and of course, tasting as we worked. Today our friends Rory and Michelle came over to do some recording (Rory is 5 and loves to sing and play guitar) and helped us demolish the house. It feels funny baking a gingerbread house in this heat, but pretty tasty and great fun for the family.

“A bush tucker walk” is also good fun for the family, if you know what you are doing and I do not. I have always figured that most of the weeds I pull are useful, but needed a good guide. The girls and I visited a school this week and went on one of these walks, led by a humble expert. He showed us all the weeds in our garden which we can put in a salad, which wild seeds to grind up and make bread, which wild berries are edible, which wild roots can be used in stew, which leaves can heal stubborn wounds. We ate kangaroo stew, warrigal greens quiche, a weedy salad, and damper (a thick flatbread cooked on the fire) for lunch. It was awesome for me, but my girls are pretty picky. They enjoyed the lead up to the meal though, especially picking berries and watching children at “big school.”

So with all that, what shall I take from this week? My friend from Togo is a tiny fish in a big scary sea. The mountains she has to climb are beyond my control and imagination, but I can bring them potted plants, popcorn and distract them from their pain. I can eat weed salad, sacrifice some control in exchange for more genuine generosity, swim in a muddy dam and feel beauty, goodness and freedom.

With that, I bid you goodnight.
Peace,
Shana

Also…some of your emails have been blocking my address as spam. I don’t know what to do about it, but would love suggestions. The best bet is that I stop sending these via email just in case there is something bad attached and leave it for you to look on the internet, www.paintedguitar.com. Look on the Blog.

Blow ya kisses all day

Hello there. Time is flying, it’s hard to believe that it is already the third week of November. Your stores are probably filled with Thanksgiving decorations (which I actually miss) while ours are already turning red and green. Jacinta is getting so excited for Christmas, especially when she sees the trees, garland, ornaments, and even the fake Santas.

We have had another relaxing week, with no playgroup, French class or choir to outline our days. I love waking up with no place to go although I do miss chatting with my friends. I am sure Jacinta would be happy to play with her buddies, but I love being able to focus on the girls and can’t do so with a full house. We moved slow, read books inside, even on beautiful sunny mornings, painted, created with play dough, packed for our trip, dressed up dollies, built towers out of blocks for the little wine cork animals, danced, drummed on our bellies, and sang. It’s nice to be out of voice because I can really hear the girls sing. I still had to keep up with the laundry and the cooking, but I’ll admit, I am an incredibly uninspired cook these days. I hear the inspiration comes back as the children get older. I feel like we should stay inside for some reason when we’re sick, perhaps because the out doors make you want to run and move fast. But I think I expend less energy outside because I am not surrounded by dirty dishes and unfolded laundry, but lush green foliage and colorful flowers.

On these lovely lollygagging days at home the only packing I do is packing water and extra clothes to head down to the garden. Packing and unpacking to go out is a big time investment for me. So I have welcomed the change, even if our seclusion is caused by illness. We watched our seeds grow each day and observed amazing insects in the garden. We jumped on the new stepping stones that Matt made with the girls. I discovered some hidden red pepper seedlings, which was one of the only seeds I could not successfully sprout. We transplanted those, sunflower seedlings, and lettuce seedlings. Jacinta’s love for the garden goes up and down, right now, she is on a high. She asks to transplant, and is learning how to do it very well. I am teaching her the few new tips I learned from my gardening class. She is shockingly receptive and quite eager to learn. She makes little stick fences around each seedling to prevent us from stepping on the tiny plants, knowing that Genevieve might tear them down. My effort to save certain plants from being squashed by little girls’ feet and turkeys claws uprooting them has been plant pots. I cut the bottom off of a pot and shove it down in the ground until it the plant is established. Although the pots are a bit of an eyesore, so far it is working out for the corn, zucchini and melon plants.

On the fruit front, our first plum tree and our nectarine tree are coming to an end. We ate a lot of the fruit. The bats had their share and we got rid of a lot to destroy fruit fly larvae. There is one plum tree left with fruit. Our apple tree was ripe and lovely on Monday when we discovered sweet apples and evidence of bat munching. We ate a few apples, picked a few for the house and rejoiced that they were ready, given that we had no clue they’d be ready so soon. On the same day, Jacinta discovered that the apple tree was climbable, so she sat on a branch munching happily away. Giddy that we had actually grown a good climbing tree, I started pruning, to make it safer and easier. That night the bats enjoyed my pruning job, I had make a lovely space for them to get in and eat all the apples, except for three. Jacinta has retold this story quite a few times already to friends, “Do you want to hear something REALLY sad?”


Genevieve got through her conjunctivitis in three days, but then I got a sore throat. Both girls were in great health by the time my immune system gave up. Two of Genevieve’s eye teeth came through, leaving two to go which cause her great pain and give her “the grumps.” Or so we think this is the reason for her snootiness. “MINE,” she yells nastily. Jacinta of course still reminds her that, “No Genevieve (in a calm voice), it is not yours. It is ours. Everything belongs to Mother Earth.” She says this with such a superior calm, as if she remembers this lesson every time she refuses to share with her little sister. Although I must say, Jacinta is increasing her ability to share, speak calmly and remember that she is older and should be calm and understanding with her little sister friend.

Genevieve, keeping up the reputation of a little sibling, has started crying wolf. While Jacinta is three feet away, she calls out, “Jinta hurt me.” Genevieve is getting to the age when I can bust her for things like that. As you can imagine, this makes Jacinta very happy, and restores her faith in fair treatment. Genevieve gets pickier by the day and lately, refuses to eat her meal saying, “no like it…..Pear!!!” She is trying out the power to refuse what is offered and demand fruit. Jacinta also loves to share the rules with Evie, “You have to eat your meal before you can have any dessert.” Jacinta then tries the same trick and I ask her what she just told Genevieve. The sheepish grin says it all. She loves knowing the boundaries and teaching them, but acts more her age when it comes to following them.

Jacinta is starting to realize the power she has over Genevieve. Evie almost always says, “Ah huh,” to every question, meaning yes. Jacinta constantly gives Genevieve choices, which of course, she can not answer. A child her age is not meant to make choices, it is not developmentally appropriate. So after four or five attempts, Jacinta picks the one she wants Evie to have and asks, “Evie, do you want the green one?” (Jacinta doesn’t like green.) “Ah huh.” Jacinta is also noticing how her little sister repeats everything she says and is proud. Jacinta says to Matt every day as he leaves for work, “I’ll blow you kisses all day long!” Now Genevieve says the same exact thing every time Matt walks out the door.

Matt has been going out the door to work all week, nothing new. He doesn’t say much about it, other than that it is busy and he has too many clients. This week he drove back and forth a bit more than usual and is tired of driving, taking clients to and from hospital. He does get insight into life at the end. He meets and assists all different kinds of people, which is interesting culturally. He did mention this week that one of the drugs that almost all of his patients take was first marketed as rat poison. Hmm…

Besides paid work, Matt finished his little storage shed, so he is now onto another project. Our garden/building shed is a bit of a wreck, too much stuff in a small space and with inadequate methods of storage. Matt is using a massive red truck tarp to increase the size of the existing tin roof and keep rain off the building materials. He cut weeds down with the whippersnipper for a few hours too. Friday night after work he came home from work and found us playing in the garden. So he dove into a half-finished project. The sandpit needed shade and the grapevine needed a trellis so he set a few long birch tree poles in concrete and screwed on four sheets of lattice. I dreamed this up a while ago, and am pretty excited to see the results. It adds another level to the garden, and of course, the grapes and the shade will be much appreciated.
Besides taking turns being ill this week, there were a few days when we were all well. These were extraordinary days. We were pretty lucky to have “Pa and Carolyn” stop in for a few hours for a cup of tea, to check out the garden, the new things Matt had built, play with the girls and even go out for Chinese food. They hadn’t been out since Genevieve was born, the mosquitoes scared them away. Luckily this year is much better on that front.

Today I took the girls out to Bellingen for the markets. It was a hot day, but we found some lovely Christmas gifts and fresh blueberries and peaches. We ran into a few friends and even met another French woman. Jacinta and Genevieve particularly enjoyed the music, the jumping castle, the smoked fish, and the swimming pool. My favorite purchase was a few old garden tools, in much better quality than what you can buy in a store. It poured down rain as we were leaving, a quick way to cool things off.

On Tuesday, I left the house at 4:45am leaving the girls in Matt’s care until 7:30 and then in Keith’s care for the rest of the day. I drove to Coffs Harbour to pick up a few kind refugees from Burma and Togo. I then drove us all to harvest garlic in Thora, a lush rainy valley of hippies, many of whom work, share, live and play together. Not only was it my first full day away from the house actually being paid, but I was surrounded by really interesting people, pulling hundreds of garlic heads out of beautifully fertile soil in a gorgeous valley. The harmony of the four different languages danced in my head, transporting me to a place I have never been before: in the beautiful isolated countryside surrounded by people from all over the world, something that seems to happen only in the city. I translated French into English so the locals could learn a little bit about the Togolese folk. I learned from the local Thora people what people talk about in a close knit community tied to the land: grown men discussing birds, chamomile growing techniques, sheep, soil health, and beer brewing. I chatted with my new friend (a former chauffeur) from Togo who sat shot gun, nervous that I couldn’t drive. We talked about African politics. We talked about vegetables, what they could not find here, and what they can probably grow here. I couldn’t speak much with the Burmese people, but we tried. Mostly, I just watched the woman as we pulled garlic together, mystified and in awe of her silence. I wondered how she was so good in the field, tried to imagine what her life before had been, and what was inside her silence as she stared off into the mountains. I love being at home with my girls, but the lessons I learned this day made all the effort worth it.

I have a lot to learn. It’s lucky they are twenty-four hours in each day. But the night is fast disappearing, so I will leave you and surely learn something as I slumber the night away. Good night.

Peace,
Shana

Derama Obama

Good evening my American friends and family. Out my window I see dripping tree ferns and lush green undergrowth in the last misty hour of daylight. It looks no different than it did last week, but much has changed. The American people (Matt and I included) elected a man that Matt and I really respect. He gives us hope for the future, rather than fear and shame. No matter who the president is, if you voted for the winner, it feels rather different than when you voted for the loser. The last time I voted for the winner I was nineteen years old and didn’t know much about politics, just how my parents usually voted. This time I was 31 years old and sat in a living room in Australia glued to the television on Wednesday between 11am and 4:30pm with my two little girls. The girls knew something had to be going on for their mom to sit in front of the television in daylight. Jacinta knew we were choosing a new rule maker for the USA. “Why do we want a new one? Why do you like Derama Obama better than the other man? Why is it just men? What is war? Why do they send people to other places and kill them? We don’t want to kill anyone or anything, do we mommy?” We talked about the fact that we do kill things, like mosquitoes, rats, mice, caterpillars, fruit flies: anything that destroys the things we need. We did not discuss why one would kill another human though, luckily she doesn’t know this happens yet. These were all very hard questions to answer in four year old terms and actually keep her feeling that the world and most of the people in it are good.

We danced the happy dance as each new state was called for Obama. Matt got off work early to join us, anxious all day that he was missing out. (The election has been a MAJOR pastime for Matt, so much that he is now searching other forms of entertainment). We had to take breaks for hanging out laundry, helping Genevieve go down for a nap and going to swimming lessons. But we made it back just in time for Obama’s acceptance speech, live, luckily. Seeing the new American President elect accept his new commission in my hometown in Grant Park was amazing, moving, beautiful. Of course Barrack Obama cannot save the world, or make the USA a place capable of taking good care of the earth and all of its people in just four years. But he can get us further than anyone else running for office, certainly with the help of all the people mobilized to elect him. He again used the word sacrifice in his acceptance speech. The strong African-American presence, standing alongside the newly involved youth, standing alongside the more “normal” looking political crowd: what a beautiful tapestry. The face of politics is changing. Diversity can only bring a more egalitarian, balanced government.

I am usually pretty optimistic and hopeful (Thank you Mommy) but not when I think of government. What has changed is that I feel hope not only in the little pockets around me, but also in a massive, powerful institution, the US government. It has the power and has, at times, used it to wreak havoc around the planet to secure its best interests. But it also has the power to do good, and has done so in the past. I won’t expand (you may breathe a sigh of relief), but just say that with sacrifice and creativity America can really do some good for the earth and the whole human race.

To top off the week’s excitement, the girls and I went out to Coffs Harbour on Friday to spend the day with our new Togolese friends. They are political refugees from a tiny French-speaking West African country. Of the family of six, we spent time with a lovely lady my age and her two sons, ages 3 and 5. For confidentiality reasons, I can’t give too many details. For me, it was like finding a part of me that only comes out in the presence of a strong African woman. I made a friend: the African mother I dream of sharing with my daughters. She has much knowledge and experience to share with me, as I have to share with her. She seeks understanding, a place in this strange city, community, and friendship. She did not choose to come here, but is grateful for her safety and the good, caring Australian government. She has good memories of her more distant past and found joy in talking about the trees and foods of her home. The girls and I knew a few Togolese songs, which our new friends happened to know. The mother smiled and transported herself home. She hummed the lullaby, wistfully translated the words from Mino into French and showed us the accompanying movements. She speaks five languages, but not much English.

Jacinta understands this not as “volunteer work,” but as making new friends. She tried her best to play with the little boys, but mostly listened, observed and stayed close by my side. Genevieve moseyed around in search of toys, food and fun, doing whatever everyone was doing. Jacinta knows that her job is to play and to help the boys learn English. She reminded me how to pronounce the name of their language, “Ewe mommy, they say Yehway.” Children rise to the challenge when given one. Jacinta was more patient and tolerant than I have seen her. She didn’t show much desire to join the boys until we had been there for a few hours. My girls and the boys had no language in common. The children interacted when drawing pictures at the kitchen table and also playing at the park. Although this was nothing like frolicking with her friends in the back yard, Jacinta felt the importance of this day somehow and actually wanted to stay longer than I expected. As we drove home, Jacinta reported that she had taught the mother the word “watermelon,” proudly demonstrating how she slowly pronounced it for her, “wah-ta-mehl-on.” Genevieve slept. This very different experience for Jacinta was just another place to play for Genevieve. It just happened to be a place where a lot of French and Ewe were spoken, and not much English.

Genevieve loves to play anywhere, but this week she has needed extra cuddles. Not only are her eye teeth coming through, but earned her first bee sting by grabbing a borage flower. Jacinta dove in as the helpful big sister, fetching things I needed for the sting (baking soda, cloths and ice) also adding in distractions. She kept the plums and gingerbread cookies rolling in and kept the drinks coming, all the while confidently assuring her sister, “That’s all you need Evie, ice and bi-carb, it’s going to get better.” She had splinters and got pink-eye. She then cut her foot on an oyster shell. Mary and Keith arrived home this week. In addition to the girls’ excitement to have their playmates back, it was really lucky to have their help with this oyster cut. Mary cleaned it out as well as she could while the rest of us distracted her with shaving cream. That night we did have the emergency room doctor take a look, just in case. The extraordinarily informative emergency room doctor reassured us that it was going to be fine and gave us a few good baby bandages to keep the slice clean and covered. She can’t walk very well and has taken to saying, “Cawwy me,” very cutely.

Although Genevieve is dripping from numerous parts of her little body and is sore in many places, she is not sleeping any more than before. She wakes more in the night, but sleep in the morning. As my need for sleep increased this week, her attempts to get me out of bed went up a level. After a few attempts of “Mommy open eyes, mommy wake up, open eyes,” she said angrily, “Naughty mommy! no close eyes!” She did actually succeed in rousing me with laughter.

Little children are easily distracted from their pain when they have other tasks at hand, I guess we all are. Genevieve is happy that the mosquitoes have finally arrived. You can just smack the air and she giggles instantly, saying “moustique!” waiting for your next attempt to smash a mosquito. Easy entertainment, by day Evie is quite happy doing anything. From “helping out” with the dishes, playing with random bits of anything to imaginative play with her big sister. The girls really came up with some lovely games this month, riding bikes together, riding together on the rocking horse, taking turns sometimes and battling it out others. Genevieve of course prefers one on one attention, but what is more natural in a family is that the adults are usually busy doing something as there are many tasks to run a household. Jacinta fills that role more now. When we can enjoy the sights and sounds of our little girls playing together without any adult input while we are busy doing our own tasks, Matt and I really love the size of our tiny house. But both of us do love when we can just sit down and play. For Genevieve, the second child, it is special. Jacinta expects this, she was once an only child.

It is raining and has been doing so intermittently all week long. This is why the mosquitoes have been able to increase their numbers, but also good for our water supply and garden. The rain has done all the work in the garden, this is my excuse for not having found the time to do much at all. Jacinta did plant a box of carrots and we picked fruit. The nectarines and plums are still in seasons and taste really nice. We actually dried a bunch of plums, which was a mistake. They turned bitter like cranberries in the drier, so we are using them in muffins. The weeds will be pretty rough after all this rain. The chickens will like the weeds. Speaking of chickens, they all escaped this week. I spent a frustrating afternoon cussing them out while I shamelessly chased them, in vain. I guess I only enjoy chicken chasing when I’m in the mood. I actually caught the wild rooster in a cage, but when Matt went to move him into the pen, the sneaky thing escaped again. Then Matt did some shameless chicken chasing and enjoyed himself, releasing work stress through rooster harassment. A few days later, a fox got the wild rooster early in the morning. Too bad we couldn’t convince him to live in our safe little chicken pen. The wild life does seem much better though.

The past few weeks Matt has been working on a small storage shed, neighboring the chicken pen. Last week he put a roof on so he could work through the rain. Now that he knows he can build a house, he seems pretty confident to build little buildings. This shed went up in less than a month, all wooden with a tin roof and a window for sunlight. I’m sure we’ll be able to fill it up pretty quickly. Jacinta loves building with her daddy. Since she helped a little bit along the way, she takes great interest in the daily progress. Genevieve too is interested in the cute little shed. She always found a way to sneak onto the dangerous building site, so I am grateful that it is finished.

After Jacinta has heard a few bedtime stories, she now tries to convince us that she is not sleepy. I leave her but Matt humors her since he has been gone most of the day. I hear them from the other room. “Tell me about your day Jacinta.” “No Daddy, you tell me first.” I never listen to what they say, but I wonder how Matt describes his day to a four year old. I wonder how Jacinta describes what we have done all day. Matt’s voice usually stops pretty quickly, but I can hear Jacinta’s voice through the walls going on and on. What an opportunity, to have her daddy right there, doing nothing else, wanting nothing more than to listen to his little girl talk. Jacinta is very lucky, her daddy knows what chatty girls need. We all are lucky for one reason or another.

I wish you all luck and a loved one who knows what you need. We might long for an open ear, a warm embrace, a place to stay, or someone to play with. My new Togolese friend probably longs for these same things, plus a few more. She has gone through a hell that I could never imagine, but even so, she has a place to stay and counts her blessings that she can walk anywhere without fear for her life (besides on the highway). The Aussie government knows what its people need and provide universal health care for them. Someday the US may be able to be do so. We can hope and help somehow, all in time.

Peace,
Shana

Dead day

Good evening friends. I am sitting here in darkness, lit by this obnoxious computer screen and by a small green Jack-O- Lantern smiling at me. Therefore, I must wish you a Happy Halloween. Perhaps if I were in America I might dread this holiday now because certain children’s costumes might scare the kids and force me to answer questions like, “Mommy, what’s a devil?” It would certainly bring masses of artificially flavored, artificially colored, sugary junk food into our house. But I have always loved Halloween for bringing the community together, the fun of dressing up and walking around in darkness in the autumn and actually seeing other humans out in the street. As I kid I loved all that, plus the masses of junk food.

Here in Australia Halloween is something new, fun for children, but not really embraced by many adults. It seems that the older the opinion holder, the more it is seen as yet another example of the Americanization of the world, which for younger people is not really a problem. But mostly, it is not celebrated here. Thus I can easily pick and choose which parts of Halloween I want to celebrate. Yesterday the girls and I celebrated all day long, dressed as butterflies. We started the day out with our wings and antennas and went on a treasure hunt for decaying bits of nature. Usually we hunt for beautiful colorful flowers, so this was actually a really cool twist to search for beauty in the dead. Both girls got really into it, Jacinta of course correcting her little sister, “No Genevieve. That’s not dead.” I’m not sure Genevieve really got it, but each time she picked up something dead, she pronounced it “dead.” Jacinta had mourned the passing of a beautiful red rose, but this day she lovingly gathered all of its dried up fermenting petals, put them in her basket to place on our nature table inside the house. She also noticed the rose bud forming on a branch nearby.

Our little table is now covered in dead ferns, orange and brown leaves, sticks, seed pods, and fermenting flower petals. We ended our walk in the orchard and picked some plums, nectarines and almost ripe apples. We then bobbed for them in the sandpit. Turns out that only the apples floated, I suppose that’s why I’ve never heard of bobbing for anything else! I was actually shocked that they were edible, I guess bat munched fruit should have been a sign that they were ripening up. Jacinta enjoyed trying once again at this silly game, but eventually just grabbed a nectarine with her hands and enjoyed it. Genevieve stuck her face in the water just for kicks, but found a much easier way to grab fruit out of a tub of water. After a while she just sat in the tub and enjoyed the fruit and the coolness of the water.

We intertwined my childhood traditions like popcorn balls, pumpkins and trick or treating with a true celebration of our loved ones who have died. We took present day Halloween and crossed it with some of the respectful traditions of The Day of the Dead and All Saints Day. Natural death is not meant to be so terrible, just part of the cycle. All Hallow’s Eve’s origins were respectful of ancestors and loved ones. I dug out pictures of our grandparents and momentos they had given to us, which were then placed on our nature table amongst the dead leaves and flower petals. For now, Jacinta loves hearing stories about everyone we know or once knew. Our little baby friend who died five hours after birth had her special place on our table, Theresa. Jacinta put some toys on the table that Theresa might have liked. We talked about these special people all day long. Today we had a special meal and made food that our Grandmas used to make, dining on the plates my grandmother made. I found a lot of these ideas in a book called Celebrating the Great Mother. I enjoy learning earth centered ways to celebrate holidays, it just makes sense. I look back fondly on the times I spent in church with my family but certainly the Church of the past is at fault for distancing many of us humans from earth based celebrations on the basis of being “godless pagan rituals.” There used to be mysticism in Christianity, less dogma and fewer people crying “Jesus save ME!” I know some places of worship are trying to tie earth celebration into their normal services and celebrations, which I think is wonderful and necessary to relieve us of our obsessive self-centeredness. So although I can’t yet create mysticism in myself and believe that good spirits are coming to visit us tonight because of our welcoming little Jack-O-Lantern, I hope to offer the beauty of mystery and the unknown to our girls.

The big unknown this week is the US election. I began writing this entry just after Halloween and due to extraordinary busyness, I will finish it as you are all waking up on Election Day. The outcome seems more predictable than it has been for the last couple elections, but we never can know. What a different feeling it will be tomorrow night, after America has decided who we want to lead us through the next four years of life probably including major economic change, environmental action, and the global nuclear arms race. It is major; imagine if we actually elect the first black man to the Oval Office. IMAGINE that! What a statement that we are truly ready for change. In one of the debates a woman asked the question that no American politician would choose, (I’m paraphrasing here) “Do you think that in this economic slump, we as Americans should be making any sacrifices?” Sacrifice? Compromise? What a concept. It was so nice to hear Obama actually admit the need to scrimp a little bit, I think he referred to energy saving. But scrimping seems to be something recent American politicians don’t discuss, never wanting to admit that us glorious proud Americans should have to scrimp. I’m sure they talked about scrimping and saving in the Depression, but have avoided the topic to keep that economy growing. But that’s where I get lost.

As I understand it, the US economy is based on the fact that Gross Domestic Product must continually grow to make it all work. They never mentioned this topic in college, but I have always wondered where will the earth find all the extra resources to keep up the growth? I suppose that is why we need other countries, economically, to exploit their resources to keep our economy continually growing. But can we ALL keep growing our GDP or just a few energetic nations? What happens when the countries we depend on for our own growth decide they want to go out in search of the earth’s supposed “unlimited” supply of wealth? Obviously the US is experiencing a recession, and as a result, so are many other globalized economies. We will come out of it, as we always do, what goes up must come down. But as the climate warms up and wars for oil roll on indefinitely, I guess I wonder if we’ll come out of this recession with the same economic belief that consumption and standard of living must continually rise to keep our economy going. But politicians don’t often think beyond their four year terms, I wish they did!

And I’m sure you’re wishing I’d get off the election and talk about our peaceful life here in the country. I cut myself off pretty well from the onslaught of unwanted media and I am far away from America so I’m not sick of the “campaign.” But just contemplating such big ideas hurts my poor little brain, so I will move on. The evolution of one’s brain is amazing, depending on what you use and what has been allowed to fade. The other day I racked my brains to divide 120 by 6, actually wrote it down before I realized how dumb I have become. Perhaps the knowledge I have gained in the garden took the spot where I stored my mathematical intellect.

Our pomegranate tree is in flower! The bright pink rubbery looking buds have burst open into bright pink flowers. The kiwi vines were budding last week for the first time. Their fuzzy little buds have just burst into gentle white flower today. If you are under four feet tall you can stand below in its shade and gaze above at the beautiful flowers, hiding amongst the fuzzy green leaves. The artichoke plant has created its second and third fruits. It is actually a thistle. The precious vegetable you buy in the shop is actually the bud, picked just before it opens up and turns into a big purple flower. Our garlic terrace is almost ready to harvest. We have fifty potato plants that I can not hope to mulch as I should, but they are in flower, another fun job for the girls to pick off the flower. One great thing about growing some vegetables is that picking off their flowers actually makes them grow better veggies, certainly in the case of root and leaf vegetables. Jacinta is becoming a confident little gardener and loves to repeat little bits of knowledge as she takes them to heart. “Mommy, if you pick off the garlic flower, it makes the garlic head grow bigger,” my little teacher.

It’s a good thing Jacinta has Genevieve to teach, as she has a lot to share. She has taught Genevieve so many games in these past few weeks. They have actually come up with quite a few activities that they can do together and not fight. Genevieve is starting the “MINE” stage. Jacinta, mimicking me, quickly corrects her little sister. “Genevieve, that is not YOURS, nothing is YOURS, it is all OURS. We share EVERYTHING.” She doesn’t go into the spiel that the earth gave the materials for the item, that someone else made it, and someone else gave it to us and that we will probably pass it on to someone else after we grow out of it. But I’m sure she will someday. Funny enough, Genevieve somehow gets over the possession and moves on after Jacinta corrects her.

Genevieve has taken on Jacinta’s strong character, or more likely, came to earth with that herself. Both girls are very demanding. One of my biggest jobs is not allowing them to turn into little controlling princesses, of course by asserting my own very strong will. Genevieve is still waking up with the rooster, far too early for parents who can not go to sleep before 11 pm or sometimes midnight. Once out of her crib we try cuddling her like we did successfully with Jacinta (until Evie was born). She scoffs at that idea, “Mommy, get up!” I growl and roll over. After she eventually drags me out of the bedroom, I may lay down on the couch and try to watch her play. “Mommy, get up……Mommy get off pillow…Table!” No response from me, so she goes for politesse. “Mommy, get off pillow…pease!” I have to get up at that point and jump into the nonstop action of the day.

Today we cleaned up our Halloween nature table. Jacinta thought we were going to save all of the dead leaves and flowers in a box for next year. We sprinkled them all over one of our gardens and let go of them. The whole circle is so clear to her. She understands that those precious rose petals are going to rot and make our native berry bush grow. She can take what she is ready to absorb with the human element of honoring our passed loved ones. Although it is spring here, and we are not surrounded by fermenting leaves and empty trees, some how it all feels so appropriate, especially with the election. Letting certain things go, letting them rot, and eventually enriching the earth, preparing the way for beautiful things to come. Matt has just come in to report that the polls have opened in the US.

I will leave you. I wish you happy Election Day, and hope and pray that beautiful things do come with change.

Peace,
Shana