Life is a funny thing.  We take it for granted, mostly.  We zoom around, dotting all the i’s and crossing most of the t’s, getting things done.  And then we’re done.  John Lennon is reported to have said, “Life is what happens while we’re busy making other plans.”  And I guess that sounds about right.

Often, it’s only when we are faced with death, that we even stop to consider life.

I heard a story this week, that was both the best and worst tale from this election.  It was about a woman, my age, who took her ailing father and her eighteen year old son to the polling station.

It was her son’s first opportunity to vote, the first time he would have a say in who runs this country, and the choices they will make for us, with the money and power we bestow on them.  For me, voting is wonderful exercise in trust and collectivism.  We place some numbers in some boxes, and believe those scratchings will translate into a better life for ourselves and our community.  I can still remember the pride and sense of responsibility I felt the first time I folded those green and white pages and tapped them into the oversized cardboard box.  Turning eighteen is one thing, but deciding who will govern this big-skied land, well that’s becoming an adult.  I like to imagine he was a little nervous, this young man, realising the magnitude of what he was now allowed to do.  He might have read the instructions once, and then once again, ensuring his vote counted for something bigger than himself.  He might have looked at his Mum and smiled, as he posted his papers.

I’m sure she looked at her son with new eyes that day.  His first vote.   Her boy was grown.

And then it was time for her father to vote. I imagine he shuffled over to the little booth.  He might have needed a bit of help to steady himself.  She might have held his shaking hand a little, lest he lean on the house-of-cards booth, and make it all fall down.  His eyes were probably bright with the intelligence that resides within him, but there might have been a little cloud or two dimming the lucidity.  The cancer can do that.  He might have looked at the paper for quite awhile, trying to make sense of all the  names, and all the people.  He might have had a flash of remembrance, and voted for Clive because he once knew a good bloke from work called Clive.  Or perhaps he remembered every person, and every policy, and placed his vote with care, drawing his numbers in the boxes, in a script from years gone by.  He might have smiled at his daughter for reassurance, as he posted his papers.

I’m sure she looked at her dad with sad eyes that day.  His final vote.  Her dad was almost gone.

So come what may from this election day, I know there is a woman who will be forever marked by the process.

She is not busy making other plans.  But she is seeing what happens with life.  And the changing of the guard.

Are you busy making other plans?

Do you love voting?

It seems I got a little bit off track with the blog posting schedule…

There was the Noosa Show Day Holiday, and flying foxes to be flown on.

Fun must have been had with filth like this

There was a full day of work and hands to be worked.

These are working hands…

There was a ballot paper to be filled out, and we all know how long that took.

There were embers to be stared at.

Embers from The Ashers

There was this beach to be sat on.  Not one cloud.

Noosa Main Beach… You can see my blokes in the distance.

There was this book to be read (I know, I know, it’s been out forever, but I saved it for an emergency, like a Sunday night when Nathan is watching some shit show on SBS about Easter Island, and everyone on Twitter is watching The Bachelor. Yes, I know Tim is hot, but I.Just.Can’t.)

So glad I saved you

Rest assured, I’ll be back on the keys again this week, with the new posting schedule. The evening thing isn’t really working for y’all is what I’m hearing, so I’ll post every weekday morning at 6am if I can figure out the autopost thingy.  I intend to post weekdays, and on Saturdays I’ll be sharing Hitwave Alison: my Top 5 from the week.

I hope you all had a fun weekend too. See you tomorrow.

Did you have fun voting below the line?  Do you know even one policy of the Pirate Party?

Do you think Tim is hot?

Bubbles…

My Twitter has been all a flutter with both outrage and confessions, regarding Neil Mitchell’s tweet about women in the workplace bursting into tears: “is it weakness or tactic?”  Now, there are others I’m sure who have written about this more eloquently than I ever will, but I would like to weigh in on this one: how about neither one Neil, you arsehat?  (Yes that’s right, I just said arsehat. No, I don’t know what it means either, but if the cap fits, etcetera.)

I can think of quite a few times that I have been moved to (almost) tears at work, and I don’t think any of the instances are me being weak OR manipulative…

I sometimes get teary when I hold a newborn baby in my arms and think of all potential within them, and how I get to be part of the full expression of their health.

I sometimes get teary when I have a child on my table, who I’ve known for years (probably since they were a baby) and I realise they are growing up. When I get a glimpse of the adult they will become, and I get all emo thinking about how lucky I am to be part of that trip, and how too-fast the time seems to go.

I sometimes get teary when things go really well.

When a new Mum tells me how her life has changed since her bubba has calmed down and relaxed, and now she gets to love them for their true little selves, and not try to love the bright red bundle of writhing, that just can’t be calmed.

Or when an old man tells me how he feels the spring has come back in his step, the spring that was lost when his wife died three years ago, and he descended into a world of darkness and physical pain.

Or when a teenager tells me she reckons she just aced her exams, and she was able to do so because we spent some time visualising and relaxing and breathing together, and she felt that she could think more clearly once her body was clearer.

Or like today.  When a man I regard in high esteem has finally come home.  When he was accused of things untrue, and he handled them with a calm grace.  When he moved away with his family to rewrite and rebuild his life, his work, his finances.  When he and his wife sketched out goals, and moved toward them, step by tiny step, until they could jump right into that painting.  And when today he said to me “I just can’t believe it, I just keep on waiting for the bubble to burst.”

Well, I just about thought my heart might burst.

So yeah, Neil Mitchell, sometimes I do cry at work.  But it’s bloody good.

How about you, do you cry? 

Do you cry because you are piss-weak, or are you just trying to manipulate everyone?

Mmmmmm

I just ate six slices of Fruit Toast. With lashing, lashing, lashings of melted salty butter.  So good.

Fruit toast reminds me of Sundays.

I remember when I used to sleep over at Lissy’s on a Saturday night, we would have a whole Winter Saturday at Willi Lacrosse Club.  We’d watch little bits of games I suppose, but the day was really about exploring.  It felt like we were allowed to do whatever we wanted.  Climb the trees lining the Ferron (they’re probably fenced off now), go and tease the wogs playing bocce (they’re called Italians now), do a death-run past the top of the cobbled naughty-boys lane (it has million dollar houses flanking it now)… We had lollies and chips, and red-lemonade and Four ‘n’ Twenty pies for dinner.  Some weird kid would always get mussels in a jar from the Fish and Chip shop.

Once it got dark and the lacrosse was over, the parents would move into the warmth of the clubrooms that smelt of liniment and fusty beer.  It would be noisy and happy and a couple of blokes would start singing “I am the music ma-an, I come from down your way,”  and we would go outside to play in the crisp night.  Some Dad would turn on the lights to the box-lacrosse court, and we would play British Bulldogs until someone would break a bone, or almost break a bone, and we would get called back inside.

I was always allowed to sleep over at Lissy’s.

We would wake up to the sound of the guns going off at the Rifle Range, (there’s a whole housing estate there now), and we would imagine the shots were firing out the beat of the opening bars of Blue Monday.  Our parents didn’t know who New Order were, so we knew we were cool.

We would laze in bed, and Lissy’s parents would bring us fruit toast.  Not the thick slabs, like dry sponges, that shops seem to favour nowadays, but lovely thin slices of Tip Top Raisin Bread, lightly toasted, with Western Star on top.  The butter would go on like cheese, then melt to a delicious golden liquid. Our chins would be slick with it.  We would keep calling for more toast, more toast, until Lissy’s brother would come in and tell us we’d get fat if we didn’t stop, and we’d giggle underneath our quilts because we’d knew never get fat.

We would lie on our backs and Lissy would make up songs.  She would write new ones, or invent better verses for songs we already knew; Kids In America, or Don’t You Want Me? or The Power of Love, but with surfing lyrics.  We didn’t surf yet, but we thought we might soon, so it was important to have the songs ready.  Lissy always had a plan, an idea, something fresh to think about.  And I would lie there and listen, or fall back asleep, or read Sweet Valley High books.

I suppose we eventually got up out of bed, but nobody ever made us.  We didn’t have to go anywhere, be anywhere.  It was Sunday.  And Sundays were warm, toasty.

Do you have a food memory?

Do Rifle Ranges still exist?

I know you are going to be shocked to hear this, but I found out today that I am officially a grumpy old lady.

I was already a bit cross before I started the week: I have a slight cough, I finished my book ‘Gone Girl‘ in one day, with no new book at the ready, and it’s a bit windy here.  I don’t like wind. Gets me all tetchy.

I was also already a bit cross before I started the year: I have The Menopause.  I assume that’s all I need to say about that.

Regardless of these portentous signs, today I did “literacy rotations” with the Grade One class, followed by a trip to the shopping centre. I guess you can see where this is heading…

So I made a list in my head of all the things that confirm that I am, in fact a grumpy old lady.  It made me grumpier.  I now provide this list for your reading pleasure:

• I saw a youth chuck some litter on the ground, I said “Oi,” and shook my head at him.  He picked it up.
• I made that “tch-tch” clicking sound with my tongue, when someone tried to push in front of a kid at the newsagent. They let the kid (and me) go first.
• I saw a man my age staring at a friend of mine’s 18 year old daughter in the queue at Woolies.  He had one look, then a pretend “I’m just moving my head around here, oh, look, a hottie young enough to be my daughter” look.  Twice.  I narrowed my eyes and stared at him until he felt me staring.  When he looked at me, I flicked my eyes in Hotgirl’s direction.  He got busy with his shopping after that.
• My iPhone went all weird and non-workingish so I gritted my teeth and seethed at it “You better work right now, you piss-poor excuse for a computer, or I’m replacing you.”  Then I hit it twice.  It works again.
• I was in the bakery section of the supermarket, and hungry, so I picked up some pizza rolls, saw the price, and put them back down.  The bakery lady smiled and said, “Wrong flavour?”  I said, “No, wrong price.”  She pointed out to me some rolls that were on special.

So it appears that there has been an increase in my powers, proportional to the reduction in my youthfulness and sunny disposition.  I’m too grumpy to decide what I prefer yet, so don’t even ask me, because: The Menopause.

On the way home from school, I observed two unsafe driving practices, so I told the children a long and educational story about each.  It seems my new powers don’t work quite as well with them.  Their eyes went all glassy, and I’m pretty sure Liam was air-guitaring the chords for ‘Funky Town‘ with his left hand. He better not have been changing the words to ‘Grumpy Town‘.

And then I looked down at my hand and saw this:

OLD LADY HAND!

Do you have power or beauty? Can you have both?

Can you see my old lady spots yet? (lie to me, lie to me!)

Cyndi O’Meara once told me about a thing she and Howard do called the “Rocking Chair Test”.  If they are getting all intense about something, they apply the RCT.  They imagine themselves, ancient and Yoda-like on their verandah, sitting in their rocking chairs, and looking back on their lives.  What will they think of the trials and challenges of today?  Will they be full of meaning and intensity, or will they just be little blips on the radar of life? The RCT, kind of helps you get a bit of perspective.  (Sorry Cyndi, I may have made that Yoda bit up.)

Today I am applying the Rocking Chair Test to our kids, in the wake of Father’s Day, and all things family-like.

What will it be like, looking back on the job we did as parents, and the childhood we helped create for our children?  Will we remember with dread, all the crumbs under the dining table and the tears over broken toys?  Or will we wish, just once, that we could still heal broken things with a big hug and a bit of super-glue?  Will we miss those errant crumbs?

What will we think of the challenges that the kids have faced?  Will we wish we could wipe them away with the flick of an Enjo, or will we love and embrace them for being the very things that made our children stronger, more resilient, more tenacious?

What will we think of the statement “I just want them to be happy?”  Will that still be our mantra, or will we look back with the perspective that only time can bring, and think perhaps there’s more to life than being happy all the time?

I hope that we will rock in our chairs in the afternoon sunlight, one gnarled hand holding another, and say that our children had lives that were happy, sad, funny, boring, joyful, challenging, meaningful, and daring.  I hope they will be curious, take risks, rise to challenges, laugh, play and bask in the sunlight.

I hope we will sit together, on all the Father’s Days yet to come, and say, “We had a good life.”  Sometimes happy, sometimes not, but good.

 …But I won’t miss the bloody crumbs.  I just swept yesterday!

What will you miss?

Wanna come and clean up my crumbs?