Once upon a time, a boy decided to take two girls on an adventure walk.

The girls agreed, not because they liked walking, but because he assured them they would see something really cool at the end. They heard him say it was a lighthouse. The Cape Woolamai Lighthouse.

The weather was hot, the dry and scalding heat, without even a drop of cleansing humidity, that only Victoria can produce. The walk was long, made longer by the lack of air and the dense beach-scrub and the sand that shifted and sifted its way through the mesh of their fancy runners.

The girls whinged and complained and carried on about how long the walk was, and how this walk better be worth it and how damn hot they were. They looked straight ahead at the back of the boy’s head, or down at their feet, quietly grumping about how their runners were getting ruined by the sand, how boring this walk was.

They wanted to stop and go back many times, but they spurred themselves on by thinking about how good it would be once they got to the lighthouse. They imagined the view of the lighthouse glinting in the sun, bright white against the IBM blue of the sky. They imagined it would be worth it all. In the end.

By and by, and seven hundred and eighty-five whinges later, the boy turned around with a grin and a flourish. Here you go girls: gesturing to the sign.

Woolamai Light.

No house.

Just a light. On a pole. Like a streetlight, but not as interesting. It seemed that they had heard him incorrectly, so intent were they on the idea of something. Something that didn’t even exist.

NOT a lighthouse.
Image Source: K. Eggleston

The girls went through the stages: denial, anger, sadness. They told the boy off for tricking them and making them walk all this way, in this heat, for nothing but a light on a pole. They felt like they had been deceived. Completely ripped off.

So whilst they harangued the boy over the hoax, he just smiled and smiled until he finally said, “Happiness is a journey girls, not a destination.”

The girls went quiet.

And finally, they smiled too.

How is it for you, is happiness the journey, or the destination?

…From The Ashers

There are two children in this family, but sometimes by these posts you could think there was only one. The one who demands more time and attention. The one with all of the needs, that sometimes take over the other, more mundane requirements of a family. The squeaky wheel.

We also have a quiet wheel. A kid who has not given us a moment of trouble since the day he was born. Hang on, that isn’t strictly true- we had a day when he was about a month old called Black Sunday. I remember it well because there was stupid car racing on the telly, and Nathan wouldn’t turn it off, and the kid somehow got overtired and cried and cried and just WOULD NOT SLEEP for a whole day. That one day, I thought he might never sleep again. For those moments, I feared that this may never pass, and that my life would always be like this, with a crying child and a grumpy husband, that I would be pacing the house juggling the two of them forevermore. Then he fell asleep and it was all over, and I learned that he was the type of child who thrived on routine and structure and in knowing what was coming next. So I never varied from the predictable again.

So this baby who was soothed by schedules has become a boy who is independent and knows his own self. He knows what he likes, often before he even tries it, and he can be tricky to coerce into things he has already made up his mind about. So of course, because I am the mother and I worry about things that have not even happened yet, I try to modify that, to make him more open to change, to try new things, to do be okay with spontaneity (even though deep down I suspect it has “its time and its place”*)

That child also came on the bush walk.

His challenges were different to his sister’s. He found the actual activity easy, but he soon tired of the sameness that is the Australian bush. He said he felt like we were just walking around in circles, and that there had better be a good reward at the end of this trip, because the journey sure was boring. I almost laughed aloud at how similar we are. As his sister and father were looking up down and all around at all of the different trees and plants and trying to spot wildlife, we were stomping ahead, intent on ‘getting there’. For us the joy of the journey was in the arriving. We have a lot to learn, my boy and I, from those other two. (Remind me sometime to tell you the story of the Woolomi Lighthouse.)

Once we ‘arrived’ he immediately got prepared for the fun to start. He had seen a rope tied to a tree that someone had left behind, and he was keen to swing into the rock pools. I said to go ahead and do it, mainly because I didn’t think he would.

So I sat back and watched his preparations: testing the rope for strength and then for fastness. He then did three or four practice swings, swinging out over the water, making sure he had the distance right, the grip on the rope sufficient. He did things that I wouldn’t have thought to do. I asked him what made him consider all of these variables. “Standard safety checks, Mum,” was the reply.

Oh. Okay then. You would have thought it came with a manual.

Finally it was time for the real deal.

Got the camera on Mum? Check.

In video mode? Yes Liam, I said check.

Okay, here we go then.

I held my breath a little, still thinking he wouldn’t really do it, but holding it just in case he did, and cracked his head on the rocks or something, not wanting him to do it, yet really wanting him to dare to do something outside his comfort zone.

I didn’t video it.

He gave me a foul look (that I suspect I will see some more of in the years to come) gave the little sigh that leaks out when you have to deal with idiots, and prepared to do it again. For fun? No, for the camera. I pretended for a while that I still wasn’t getting the shot, just to make him do it over and over. All of the videos are almost exactly the same. He swings the same way every time, drops at the same moment, surfaces, and gives me a thumbs up. Mission accomplished.

Pretty much how he does his life.

When did you last do something that takes your breath away?

Are you trying to change someone’s ways because you think they could be better?

*A quote to run your life by right there: from the character, Alison, in “The Sure Thing”, sometime in the 80s.

Also: I would have loved to have shown you the video (which I did take) but I can’t figure out how to import it over here. Feel free to enlighten me WP nerds.

…From The Ashers

Things that ‘normal families’ do on weekends: go for long walks on the beach, play sport, go for bike rides.

Things that families with different kids do on weekends: go and be the test-patient in the doctors’ exams, prepare for transfusions, go and give thank-you talks at the blood bank, get interviewed and photographed for articles in the paper about the need for blood donations.

We have never been for a bush walk.

One of our kids is seven years old, and we have only just taken the pram out of the back of the car, because we never know when we might have to use it, when her little legs will seem to run out of oxygen, and she will need to be helped along for a while. Seven is too old to be in a pram- I know this because a lady once told me when we were at the shopping centre, so I didn’t take the pram so much after that, preferring to use a shopping trolley instead, regardless of whether or not I had any groceries.

This seven year old kid is also a strong-willed little thing, which means she wants to do the things that the other kids do. She wants to walk to the park, walk to the ferry stop, walk along the boardwalk. It’s just that sometimes she can’t. When she was little it wasn’t much of a problem if she couldn’t make it, as I was able to carry her. I did it so often my left arm is much bigger than my right, with bulging biceps and triceps. (Shame it didn’t help the tuckshop arms.)

When we went to Bali, all of the Wayans said that I was like a Balinese mother, carrying my child until she was grown up. I didn’t tell them it wasn’t by choice. I was a baby-wearer by default.

Sometimes in my weaker moments I wondered what would happen once she was too big for me to carry. Would we get a wheelchair, a motorised scooter, or would we just stay home?

This weekend was different.

This weekend we braved a bushwalk to Kondalilla Falls. We thought we would just go down to the rock pools at the little falls and that would be it, but the children wanted to go ‘all the way around’. We looked at each other nervously, and decided to give it a go. There were times when I thought she wouldn’t make it, and times when I thought her wobbly legs would make her trip, and fall over the edge of the path to some unknown.

There were some mishaps…Of course

She surprised me with her stamina and her tenacity, and it gave me an opportunity to talk to the kids about effort and resilience and about staying the course, even if things get tough. Most gratifying of all, I got to use the words of my gorgeous friend Sam Naudin, who embodied the spirit of all we were discussing: Never, never give up.

Beautiful

Sam would have loved this walk, this discussion, this life that we are so lucky to have before us for the grabbing. She loved a bit of “huff and puff” as she called it.

I like to think she whispered in Coco’s ear a couple of times, to help her keep on going.

It would have been just like her.

Coco found a heart rock for you Sam.

RIP Sam.

I think of you often. Coco said she wants to the National Park walk out to “Sam’s Gates” next. 

…From The Ashers xx

Sometimes I have all the feels, and all the things I want to write in a blog and I know it is better to swallow them all/ be quiet/ step away from the keyboard/ go and eat some leftovers/ because nothing that will come out will be palatable or user friendly or something anyone would like to read.

So there is no blog here today.

Sorry.

I guess I’ll be back tomorrow.

Hopefully with something nice to say.

…From The Ashers xx

Here are the hits:

1. I know, I know, I always say it, but HOW GOOD ARE SCHOOL HOLIDAYS? Can they go on forever please? Or at least another few weeks.

2. These Veuve smoking slippers, or whatever the hell they are.

Yes, you can wear them with socks Jools.

I want need them, and I need them immediately. Gives new meaning to the term “I’m putting on my drinking shoes.”

3. Sleepover visitors. How GOOD ARE THEY? Especially when they are My Friend and his Little Mate. So good.

So good to hear the laughter of little kids playing together, dressing up and mucking about.

So good to share food and convos around the table with people who you love like family (and who you wish would stay for longer). Blessed, I tells ya.

4. Working from home. Do you do it? Perhaps you should try it..?

The Joint, joint (See what I did there?)

Years ago, after the birth of The Evil Genius Mark II, I had some very insightful friends suggest that perhaps I could work from home. I scoffed at first (because I didn’t think of it), but eventually I came around, and I have to say it has been one of the best decisions of my working life. No travel and being able to hear the sounds of family all around are some of the perks, but most of all it has brought an all new level of loving service to my work. You can’t invite people into your home who you don’t love, so the home office has ensured that my practice is full of people who I consider to be my extended family. I love ’em, and I hope they kinda like me right back.

My motto is “For everyone you love” and I think it goes right back the other way- my place is for everyone I love. Not a bad way to spend a work day. Not bad at all.

5. A long weekend coming my way. Goodonya Queensland for moving the hol from that first half of the year where there is a GLUT of long weekends, to now, when we can enjoy the sunshine and the spring-that-thinks-it’s-summer with gay abandon. Long weekend, I can’t wait to get in you.

What are your best bits of the week? Anything amazing to share?

Did you bake the Big Batch Big Biccies yet?

…From The Ashers xx

Today the Evil Geniuses had their first introduction to the evils (and merits, depending on which side you’re on) of gambling.

Evil Genius One (who is the true genius in this story), drew up four notes. See Exhibit A:

Exhibit A: The four cards. One says “bup-bawll” like the noise on Family Feud.

He placed these notes in a little box and began his spiel.

He talked long and lyrical about the lusciousness of Lindt chocolates (of which he happened to have a full box) and the luck we might encounter, by placing a mere fifty cents in his sweaty little palm. Fifty cents bought us one lucky dip, a one in four chance (which he assured us were ‘excellent odds’) of ‘earning’ a Lindt ball.

I had one dip, did my dough and declared myself out of the running.

Evil ‘Genius’ Two however, was smitten.

She hauled her money box upstairs, and gave him dollar after dollar after dollar, in an effort to procure just one small ball. Her luck was so bad, that eventually he had to show us the notes, to prove there actually was a winning one. He was holding all the cards and she was holding back the tears.

I told her to stop giving her money away. She said she couldn’t because “I’m so close now Mummy, I can’t stop. I just have to win one soon.”

I told her that wasn’t necessarily true, and anyway I had Mentos in my bag, and I would give her one for free.

I told him to give her a break and just give her a choccy. He said he couldn’t because, “That goes against the rules of the wager.”

Eventually she did get a bit of a run on, and won a few chocolates, to calm those jangly nerves.

At the end of it all I asked them if they had learned anything useful from all this illegal gambling.

Liam: Gambling is addictive and ace, especially if you are the one holding the cards. I don’t know why it is illegal. It’s an excellent way to make money, if you make the odds good enough.

Coco: Gambling is fun and exciting, a bit like a scary ride at Aussie World. You have to pay out a lot and you might have to be patient, but eventually you win. So it makes it worth it.

Great.

Epilogue: There are no Lindt balls left, and Coco has about 25cents to her name.

…From The Ashers xx