Long legs and blue hair

Hello there. The peace of the evening surrounds me. Three little flames dance in the candle beside me. Music fills my ears; vocal harmony balances me in a way that nothing else can. I have decided to write a journal every other week, based on my own need for discipline and the difficulty of remembering events and feelings over four weeks time.

We all need discipline, as adults we can form our own disciplines. Children need us to give them boundaries within which they can learn. Jacinta knows and follows the lines, but sometimes needs to be reminded where she stands, just in case we loosen up a bit. Genevieve continually seeks to determine these lines. She doesn’t see the line as a limit, more as a suggestion. She has started to verbalize her decision to cross a boundary. I took a balloon inside to prevent the grass from popping it and explained my action. Evie whined a bit, “why??? WHY???” She disliked my response and after some contemplation said very firmly, “I be naughty.” She went inside to fetch the balloon and brought it outside and gave me the look. I laugh now, but at that moment, of course I had to respond seriously. As I have said before, Genevieve’s will to experience is much stronger than her will to please.

Jacinta’s friend Lily has the same strong will to do, knowing full well the trouble she will bring upon herself. The other night Lily and her two brothers stayed and played late into the evening while their parents and Matt and I caught up. They played like angels, never fought, continually coming up with imaginative games and activities and cleaning up their messes (when reminded to do so). They played dress up and twirled in their costumes to Hannukah tunes (the official dancing music for all dancing the girls do). They drew big pictures together and truly enjoyed each others’ company. I was amazed that no dramas arose. Then it was clean up time and I found clumps of blond hair on the floor. It turns out that Lily had cut off a chunk of Genevieve’s hair earlier in the evening. Bummer, Evie’s first haircut done by a four year old who innocently explained her action, “Genevieve’s hair was getting too long.” Although I am a little angry, I know this is quite common. My mom tells me that I too had my hair chopped by a two-year old friend.

Since that night the girls have discovered the art of dress up. Jacinta loves to try on new things and help Genevieve dress up. Genevieve never alters her wardrobe though. She wears a purple kimono, a purple feather boa, purple fairy wings and tops it off with a hideous long haired blue wig, every time. Both girls love to gaze at their funny appearance in the mirror but even more, dancing to number one on the Hannukah CD.

Another shared love the girls have now is ice cream making. They do this with upturned bikes on the veranda, turning the pedals with their hands to churn the ice cream into the cup below. My sister and I used to do this as children. Is this a common practice? It’s funny how much of your upbringing you deem as normal and then learn that you were strange and are passing that beautiful strangeness onto your children.

As Jacinta’s legs sprout into long little stick legs and her baby belly thins out, she is getting speedy on her bike, dangerously so on the veranda. She rode to town on her bike with training wheels last week, once with Matt and once with me. We worried about the hill, but she rode slowly behind the stroller as I pushed Evie and made it down safely. The ride to town is no small trip for a little girl. I am amazed at Jacinta’s stamina on some days compared to her lack of it on other days. She always has the energy to lull Genevieve to sleep, every day she is home now. Jacinta now sleeps down in Evie’s bed with her every night. She says it’s because winter is coming and she wants to stay warm. They may bite and kick each other some days, but they always find space for their sisterly love to grow.

Growing older and being a mother I am learning to accept my inability to please everyone and everything. I am often “the meanie,” if there must be one and I am okay with this. We all try to make the girls obey but I am simply around the most, so enforce the most rules and hold to the rhythms of the day. Lately I have been making a concerted effort to stop doing things and lie down to tickle, cuddle and laugh with the girls. It makes a world of difference. It’s sad that I had relegated that role to Matt since he seemed more of a natural at it. Now we share the tickling job and Jacinta and Genevieve smile more. Saturday and Tuesday are our only days with no outings. Given the choice to go to dance class yesterday, Jacinta chose relaxing at home. She relishes peaceful days with no agenda: a good lesson for me.

Matt loves days at home but they are few and far between, as is the nature of earning a living. Work is fine, he will be training for quite a while and learning new procedures. For most community service interactions there must be two people to ensure safety and also to write down all that is said by the clients and workers. So he is serving as the back up person on a lot of outings. What he learns is sad, yes, but certainly not unexpected. Our shire (county) has the highest rate of children being removed from their parents in New South Wales. He treasures his stable family, easy love, and time off even more now. Last weekend he mounted a beautiful little nature display table in our main living room. The girls and I had no problem covering it in treasures from outside and precious stones. This was the perfect place to put Genevieve’s beautiful blond curls and get over my annoyance. I cooked sea scallops in the shell for the first time last week. We were able to use the shells as decoration on the nature table. It is the perfect motivation for treasure collection on walks or gardening.

Matt’s newest project is bathroom renovation. We spent last weekend emptying out the bathroom storage shelves into our newly built outdoor shed. Matt took down the shelves and moved the toilet. Now he is reconfiguring the plumbing in order to move the sink and condense the bathroom. The goal here is to decrease the size of the bathroom and increase the size of the living room. Eventually he will relocate the wall and build in cabinets and drawers. This could be tricky without much time on his hands, but he never ceases to amaze me.

My latest project is fixing up the terrace garden. When you build garden terraces out of wood, naturally there is a lot of upkeep as the wood decomposes. It has been almost three years since it was created so now is the time. The weeds had crept in to stay, the path had risen by four inches due to soil run off and the walls had rotted in my top terrace. I spent about five hours this weekend fixing this problem and actually did it properly. Typically I do things half ass (unfortunate expression, excuse me), but this time I did it well, with shade cloth and everything. An added bonus was the piles of grubs (worms) I dug up for the chickens.

We now have ten chickens. Last weekend bought three young hens who are not yet laying eggs. They joined the five large hens and two bantam hens, entering at the bottom of the pecking order. They took the bullying for a few days, the bantam hens dishing it out too, just grateful to no longer reside at the bottom of the heap. They huddled in a corner for a few days, not even brave enough to sleep on the roost. But after a week, I am proud to say, they have made it to the roost. The snake must have smelled new chooks because he visited shortly after. Luckily the chickens clucked enough to get Matt and I out there to scare off the snake. He was determined though. Wish them luck. We are getting about three or four eggs a day now. Jacinta and Genevieve are thrilled that a bantam hen has started to lay and they get to eat baby eggs. They love their eggs for breakfast and love it when daddy cooks them.

Last Friday morning Matt made his traditional breakfast for the girls, toast fingers and soft boiled eggs. I left the house at 6am to attend a breakfast held by Zonta for International Women’s Day/Week. I was invited to speak/introduce other speakers because of my relationship with the Togolese family. It was an inspiring event to hear from interesting women: from highly educated African refugees to perky sixteen year olds with plans to uplift young girls’ body image. For a little while I got a lift for being recognized for my womanhood outside of motherhood. But then I came back to the ground and remembered why I chose to move across the world to live on land and raise our children, in search my role in a strong local community. Following the breakfast I had an even better morning with my Togolese friend Christine and her son while Matt and then Keith took care of our girls. I asked Christine to stop referring to me as a volunteer and just call me her friend. I think she will soon.

Christine and two friends of mine in the US are due to give birth in the next month. I watch her belly grow and think of my friends Maggie and Adriann and their growing bellies. I think of their drastically different lives and the lives their children will lead. The world is so big. They will all find their own forms of truth and beauty.

It has been a long while since we have had a community with whom we can share Matt’s music, at least here in Australia. Now each Sunday we drive 45 minutes each way to what we call “church or Ecofaith.” It varies each week, but now that Matt has joined we sing a few of his little songs. We sing a round called God is In All Things.
It goes round and round, the other line saying that All Things Are in God. The girls now hum this unconsciously throughout the day. The other song that’s stuck in their heads is “Though there may be many wells, there’s just one river.” I love this concept referring to God being One, and different people around the world all having different wells from which they access the Divine.

Of course there are many ways to experience divinity, beauty beyond comprehension, awe, intricate little webs in creation. I made bread last week and found divinity in the rising dough, in my little girls’ eyes as they rolled out their own bread and in their murmurs as they cuddled in the night. I strapped Evie on my back and dragged the kayak down to the river and found beauty beyond comprehension in the high tide and the crabs hiding in the mangroves. Matt and I lay awake in bed in awe a few nights ago watching a spider spin its web by the light of the moon. I am learning to let go of pleasing everyone in my life, but clinging to beauty that fills me with awe and love.

Peace my loved ones. I wish you a week full of awe and love.
Shana

Smiles of pride and joy

Good evening. Here I am again after a month with too much to say. My friend Carrie told me as kindly as possible that she does not like the new monthly journal. She said she would rather be put on a short list and receive weekly journals. She suggested I do a survey of my faithful readers and see who prefers weekly to monthly letters. So please drop me a line and let me know which you prefer. A few of you have asked what I endeavor to write. I am working, slowly, on a few intertwining stories inspired by women and men I have known in Senegal, France, Honduras, Australia and the USA, all dancing around the theme of community, the search for community and its absence and presence in our lives.

At the moment Matt and I are feeling pretty held in this sense. Work, playgroup, French class, choir, preschool, friends, Matt’s mum and Keith, our little town with shopkeepers who know our names, local festivals, markets. We have found a spiritual community where we go every Sunday morning, a church, called Eco-faith. It is Christian, recognizing God’s presence in the land and animals and before Jesus came along. Our pastor wrote a book called the God of Evolution. It is outside under shady trees, near a creek where the children can listen or play. You can imagine we are pretty happy after almost four years with no church. We met our new neighbors when a stray dog showed up and stayed all day, a lovely dog. After calling the dog pound, his owner turned out to be a lovely lady who I knew from the markets, a neighbor two doors up the road with two little daughters, ages 2 and almost 4. As you can imagine, being out of town, we’re thrilled and shocked to have little girl neighbors and a young couple who seem really cool.

In addition to this new joy, we are also feeling lucky to have been left unscathed by fires and floods. It rained like crazy last week and our valley was greatly damaged by floods. People lost cows, chickens, crops, houses, cars and more. Kempsey, the town where Matt and Mary work was flooded, the streets and everything. Matt was actually sent home before noon one day. In his work with community services he packed boxes, took phone calls for emergencies and set up helicopter drops for people who were flooded in. A friend of mine, her father tried to save his cows and drove his tractor out to save a few. He got stuck out on the flat and almost drowned in the flood waters, stopped only when he floated into a fence and held on. He lost all of his cattle. Matt visited a man who was living in a trailer on low land, squatting though. Everything he owned floated out the door and was either ruined or floated away. So fire and water, they can really help us and really hurt us. We were not hurt.

Our dam is very full, as is our water tank. Keith and Matt went out in the dark one of the rainy nights and dug a long trench to direct the water down our hill and divert it from the house. This was successful. Our chickens were very wet and stopped laying, water was getting in their pen. I suppose their rainforest origins have been bred out of them. Even though they should be tougher, I really wanted to fix up their pen so they would be happier and lay eggs again. So I climbed up on top of the pen in the pouring rain while the girls watched from the window. Keith passed up fiberglass roofing and a few boards to hold the sheets on. The chickens said thank you with a few eggs. Although the floods caused a lot of suffering, we enjoyed puddle jumping with the girls, just in awe of nature’s power to change. The paddocks on the flat looked like dams. The river nearby came within feet of our dam when the tide came in. The cows all searched for higher ground. Half of our neighbor’s cows were blocked off from his land by the flood waters as their bridge was under a couple of feet of water. Whole colonies of insects were wiped out. Crickets clung to blades of grass, hopelessly trying to hop across newly formed ponds. Beetles crowded around each other desperately paddling to find land. But we galloped down the path, did cartwheels in puddles, splashed ourselves silly and jumped in newly formed ponds. I rejoiced in easy weeding days after the flood. It doesn’t seem fair.

The garden didn’t suffer from the floods, au contraire. The kidney beans that I thought would rot in the ground, all sprouted beautifully after the flood. Lettuce and spinach seedlings I had planted in pots all came up, when logic prepared me for their floating away. I finished the second house garden, sweated more than I have in a while removing, weeding and replacing the rock wall and breaking up the weedy soil. There is not much to eat in the garden besides cucumber, basil, a few tiny peppers, a few beans, and native spinach, “warrigal greens.” The tomatoes have finished, and the rats get every bit of corn just before it is ripe enough to pick. The kiwis still sit on the vine, just as big a beautiful as they have been for the past few months. They take a long time to ripen up. The weeds are growing really well, they loved the rain. There haven’t been any strawberries all month, but Evie spotted two yesterday. The girls and I have been harvesting potatoes from the top terrace and digging grubs (fat white worms) for the chickens and as I weed. The chickens lay more eggs on those days (:

Jacinta and Genevieve need a lot of convincing to go down to the garden. I never make them work, we find fun games for them to play. Eventually they move into their own creative space and make up funny games together. After an hour or so, Jacinta usually comes up with her own idea on what she wants to harvest, plant or climb. Genevieve clings to the sand pit. She has a hard time on her own, but will play near Jacinta for a long while. Nonetheless, they both put up an initial fuss every time because they would rather play with Poppy. It kills me, because every time they come down, they have fun. They learn lessons from snails, birds, clouds and worms. Yet they still whine and complain as much the next time because they’d rather be entertained inside, away from the bugs, dirt and fresh air.

The girls like to be the center of attention, many children do. But kids must learn this important lesson, the world does not revolve around them. Our girls are slower to learn this than all of their friends as there are so many adults in our home. In the garden I try to do other things. When Jacinta is around, Genevieve can do things on her own. But when she is alone with me, she wants me next to her doing what she wants done. She has become very demanding and very verbal. Her verbosity is sometimes cute and funny, but I resist the urge to oblige knowing what she will become. After she has had enough of me not giving her my all, she starts to whine for Poppy. I try to encourage her in her play and garden close by, but it doesn’t work. Being a second child, she is used to company. The other day after a short hour in the garden with Genevieve, I took her out on the kayak on our enlarged dam. She loved that, sitting in my lap, reaching out to touch the lily pads, laying back and gazing at the clouds, singing and even jumping in and out of the kayak to get wet. Luckily I am letting go of my agenda in the garden when I am with the girls. I merely hope to spend time with them in the garden and gaze at everything growing.

Another reason I am feeling so “held” is my naturopath. I went in for a skin problem, which is called psoriasis. I have been applying a honey remedy and have almost cut out caffeine, alcohol and refined sugar. In searching for a stronger remedy for my skin problem, which is hereditary, she dug deeper to find a constitutional treatment for me. This meant asking me hundreds of funny questions about my body’s idiosyncrasies. My hot and cold feet, my cold pinkies, my moles, the extra skin on my toes, the extra skin cells on my legs, my thick head of hair, my tendency to sweat at night but not in the day, that I sucked on my hair as a child, that I never stop moving, that I am more of a doer than a thinker, that I dislike neediness, they all come together in a book somewhere to describe someone of my body type. This is shocking to me. I know there is order in the universe, but that there is a name for my constitution (sanicular aqua) and this particular treatment comes from water in Ottawa, Illinois, not too far from where I grew up! This is grand order in the universe. My Australian naturopath flipped pages following paths to different constitutions for 90 minutes and ended up on water from Illinois. I’m sure it sounds crazy that water from Illinois is going to help me with my skin, but it is not that simple. She connected my body’s tendency to overproduce cells, hair, and skin to my family history of cancer. Like a mathematician proving a new formula, Belinda was thrilled at the discovery of my constitution. She wants to help me clear my slate and hopefully ward off some of my leaning toward cancer. I won’t defend naturopathy or explain how exactly we are treating my skin, I just wanted to share my amazement at a healer’s wisdom and the whole practice of naturopathy.

One thing my naturopath pointed out given my constitution was that I would have touchy children, very true. I think she could know this because your children mimic parts of your constitution until they grow into their own. She pointed out that I toss out what I deem appropriate and expect people to take it and be happy, not in need of more. She also brought me to realize that I never rest. All this creates a recipe for children who need more cuddles, and a me who needs to relax more often. So whether or not one believes in constitutional treatments, it’s wonderful to have a healer who gives me a little bottle of homeopathic drops that might help my skin and tells me to relax, cuddle my children more, and to let them need me.

As I consciously slow down, Jacinta is more at peace every day. We set up the computer in the girls’ bedroom the other day and watched family movies while I sharpened pencils. We had no agenda, no where to rush to, just relaxing inside where they love to be. Jacinta listened to her words as a 2 ½ year old and asked how old she was. Astounded she replied, “Evie says this and she’s not even two yet!” It’s funny because Evie watches Jacinta as a baby and says, “Awhhhh, that’s Evie.” Jacinta quickly replies, “No! That’s me! You weren’t even born yet!”

Jacinta loves alone time with Genevieve, knowing that I will not interrupt. She has started volunteering to put Genevieve down for a nap. She has done it three times now. She reads her little sister stories, and has her lay down in the bed. Evie whimpers a bit, no doubt. She sings her lullabies, strumming a few chords on her ukulele followed by a few lines of the lullabies I sing to her. Sometimes Jacinta gets so into the song she sings opera style at the top of her lungs, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. I have to stop what I am doing at this point and stand by the door, muffling my giggles. Once I heard Evie say, “I peed.” So Jacinta kept on singing “Fais dodo,” while changing Evie’s nappy. She had never done it before. It took her so long that Genevieve fell asleep mid-diaper change. I have peaked a few times, and it is divine. Sometimes it takes a long time, but Jacinta hangs on, sometimes beautifully singing threats, “If you don’t go to sleep now, I’m going to leave.” But she hasn’t yet given up and each time she comes out of the room leaving her sleeping little sister behind, she is bubbling with pride.

Jacinta is gaining confidence in so many things at the moment. She can play alone, very happily, even surrounded by friends. This is probably just my own learning to be proud of her for this, rather than thinking she needs to be constantly in the midst of everyone. Jacinta will sit down and look at books on her own now. The other day I opened up a children’s nature dictionary for her. She found a page on digestion and traced the path from mouth to bottom, very interested to see the path the food travels and where the poo comes out. She can manipulate the CD player enough to start the Hannukah CD and dance. She can stop the music to run to her room and put on a dancing dress. Both girls love the way the skirts twirl and thus, will not dance in shorts or pants. (This is not always cute, sometimes quite limiting). Jacinta is back in swimming lessons and is also gaining confidence. She used to tell me to move closer to her and then she would swim. Now she tells me, “Move back mum!” and dives from sitting and swims under water to me. Last night we had a sleepover at some friends’ house. Jacinta happily slept in her friend Isabella’s room after telling Izzy stories for bedtime. In the morning we went to the beach and played in the waves for over an hour. She was knocked under a small wave and recovered, still wanting to keep going. Jacinta grew comfortable enough in the waves that she stayed in with her friends when I got out of the water. Her smile of self discovery, pride in knowing she has learned something new is one of her most genuine smiles.

Genevieve will jump too, no qualms, but stays above water and kicks with her arm band floaties. Although she doesn’t take lessons, Evie sings about Cheryl the swimming teacher. She sings about everything and everyone. When she wants to play trains, she asks if we want to build, “Freight train go so fast?” I led a vocal and rhythm workshop at a small art festival for children last weekend and Genevieve just loved the idea of a little people choir. We sang warm ups, rounds, did handclappy songs and one with rhythm sticks and finished with Freight Train. Genevieve now sings the freight train song and picks new cities to visit with each verse, most often going to America. She and Jacinta love singing along with Keith’s DVD of Down from the Mountain. There are three little girls singing in harmony, “In the highways, in the hedges..” They can’t get enough of the Peasall sisters. Matt took the girls on a big walk in and out of town tonight. He said Evie sang vocal warm ups the whole way, going up and down the scales with every word she saw, “Lochlan’s house, Lochlan’s house, Lochlan’s house…” She is hardly silent, only when she concentrates.

Her favorite game is shopping, she packs bags and boxes and then asks you, “What do joo want?” Playing tea party or in the bath she asks, “What would joo like?” She needs a direct response to every question, or she will repeat the question over and over, never getting annoyed at your lack of response. Lately she has been asking me out of the blue, “Where are joo from?” She nods knowingly and says, “Senegal?” Every time I answer her and tell her I am from America. She says with the same enthusiasm each time, “Ohhhh!” She loves the assurance in being told the same thing over and over. I think this is also why she must test boundaries. In addition to her verbal growth, she is also trying out biting and hitting, with a look in her eye that says it all. I do send her to her room. It feels so funny seeing this tiny girl grumpily plodding off to her bedroom saying, “I naughty, I go to my room.” We stopped using the word naughty a while back because she calls herself naughty all the time and we don’t want her to convince herself that she is naughty. She and Jacinta keep it up though.

Our baby is two now, we celebrated Genevieve and Matt’s birthdays on Thursday. There was a grand lead up to the big day, counting the days left, making gifts, cards and wrapping them all in pretty cloths. Matt spent lots of time and love making Genevieve a music/jewelry box that plays Waltzing Matilda. Jacinta made necklaces and I made bracelets to fill the box. Genevieve had a hard time sleeping the eve of her birthday, she annoyed me but Matt took her on and laughed with her in her wakeful delirium. I stayed up very late that night finishing things up. The day arrived and Jacinta sprang out of bed to hide the presents. Genevieve loved her jewelry, her new music box, her ribbon dancing stick and her little dustpan, but most of all, the balloons. Matt tried out his new milk frother and had a nice coffee before he set off to work. We had a lovely morning celebrating at playgroup and came home to quickly clean the house and cook. I was utterly unprepared but Keith helped me out as did Mary and my friends upon arrival. Matt joined the party after work. I actually gave up hostessing and sat down and enjoyed. The children ran around outside and played dolls (even the boys) in the girls’ room. It’s funny to see a three year old boy with a lion in his shirt say, “I’m pregnant.” Genevieve mainly followed Keith around, leaving the children to play without the party girl. They all seemed to be having fun, the boys went off with tools to the woodchip pile. The girls ran from here to there, see saw, swing set, playing with seed. Our new neighbor Zach painted all of the kids’ faces, intricate designs. We made ribbon dancing sticks for all the kids as party favors. They seemed to enjoy twirling their ribbons and somehow, they didn’t hit each other with their sticks. It was a lovely evening and Evie and Matt are both a year older.

Matt’s mum was beaming to see her son and granddaughter celebrate on their birthdays. I can’t imagine how special that would be to birth your child and see them birth their child on that same day thirty some years later. It’s special enough for me just to picture my children at birth, and remember their beautiful birthing days, the joy, pain and relief of it all.

Hope you had a lovely February. I wish you warmth as you come into spring.
We are easing into autumn and look forward to shorter cooler days. Take care 

Peace,
Shana