Erm... about that book I'm supposed to be writing

I'm having a moment of ill-thought about it all (stop that, I can hear your withering sighs, you know!). Despite having grabbed the pom-poms only very recently and encouragingly rah-rah'd someone else into an "I can do this!" book-writing frame of mind, I ummm... I'm not sure I can do this *bucktoothed grimace*

I know, I know, nothing new. This seems to happen to me every few months. But gah, I dunno, perhaps it's because I keep reading and rereading the first 40 or so pages and redrafting that section only, that I now even doubt anyone would find it remotely interesting. I look at it and think "Yeah, so, but .... who cares?!"

This is the difficulty in writing your own story, I suppose. I was virtually hounded by people close to me (as well as many more strangers imploring me to write a book - about what, I hadn't the foggiest - after reading snippets of things here and there) for a couple of years until, last May, I finally admitted I really ought to start drawing things together into a coherent, properly timelined piece of writing. After that, there were cheers ("well, about time, thank God she's finally doing it"). And I went hell for leather, the flow was easy, getting things down was a breeze.

And then I hit the brick wall and sort of stopped - I got to the part where I just found out I was pregnant with Ella - and since then, about two months now, I feel like I've been swirling in a
slow-spinning vortex, which is all that's left of my previous steam.

Just waiting, waiting, waiting, for a brick to plop out of that wall and let me peek behind it. I have to get my nerve back. I've lost it somewhere between not believing I'm remotely interesting or worthy of thinking I can do this and scared about writing what all came next. It's truly the bridge between my past and present life. And it's haaaaard!

Nobody said it'd be easy, huh.

Uncle Henry! Aunty Em! It's a northerly, it's a northerly!

Steve thinks I'm strange. ..... Actually, we could leave this blog entry right there.

But no, he thinks I'm strange because I can get up in the morning and declare the day a Northerly (wind direction) without stepping outside. Today is one of those days.

If you're prone to hayfever or heavy sinus on those days, even when there's barely a detectable wind actually blowing, you'll most likely be able to do it too.

Still, as far as super-powers goes, he thinks this is mine.

A Dastardly Moustache-Twirl... 'Ghetti Style

From Dolly to tears in three songs

My current fave playlist is a bit of a serious musician's nightmare, I'm sure. There is a a mix of everything in there - probably everything except my favourite classical pieces (must add those).

And so it was that I was belting out Here You Come Again with the biggest cracking smile on my face (I know it's supposed to be a sad song, but dang, Dolly Parton sings it so darn sunnily - is that a word? - that it makes you feel good, even though it's a heartbreak song).

Then a song by Keane came on and I was immediately thrust back to the first time I heard it after Ellanor died. It had been a song I really loved anyway, but after everyone had gone back to work (Steve included) and I had started my new life as a childless mother, I found myself absolutely bawling singing along to it one day only a few weeks after we said goodbye. It's another of "those songs" I have written about before. Ones that are love songs but can easily be converted or fit in to losing someone, if you look past just a few lines here and there.

I can remember working in my new home office, for once blessedly distracted with concentration on something other than Ella, when this song came on:

Somewhere Only We Know

I walked across an empty land
I knew the pathway like the back of my hand
I felt the earth beneath my feet
Sat by the river and it made me complete

Oh simple thing where have you gone
I'm getting old and I need something to rely on
So tell me when you're gonna let me in
I'm getting tired and I need somewhere to begin

I came across a fallen tree
I felt the branches of it looking at me
Is this the place we used to love?
Is this the place that I've been dreaming of?

Oh simple thing where have you gone
I'm getting old and I need something to rely on
So tell me when you're gonna let me in
I'm getting tired and I need somewhere to begin

And if you have a minute why don't we go
Talk about it somewhere only we know?
This could be the end of everything
So why don't we go
Somewhere only we know?


I look at the words now and don't see in them what I feel when I hear and sing the song. Nowadays, it instantly places me right back there in that room. Desperately singing and searching for her. There is something very organic and earthy about it to me. I think it is in this that I see the connection with her, for I was forced to accept quickly that she too is of and for the Earth even though she is from me. I can't even pinpoint exactly what it is in the lyrics that connect them to her (for me), but I seem to recall it occurred around the time when I was really working very hard at learning the balance of letting her go but also letting her in. It is an incredibly tough task to learn to mother in this way - without your baby here to show you what it needs from you - but you do indeed still mother that child, regardless of whether you are actively and physically doing so. I wasn't aware of that then. But it was what was sparking in me.

Not only that, but she had suddenly gone from my entire awareness. After all, this dear soul had been around me since late 2002. I had had the immense pleasure of getting to know Ella right through 2003, both before and after she was conceived, and then she didn't really "leave" me until she was two weeks old. So just two short weeks had passed for me to get used to not being able to communicate with her using my telepathy, before she slipped away from me completely. I called and I called to her, so often. But I never heard back (not for months). While it was very good proof to me that none of what I had experienced with her had been made up in my head, for why could I not continue to "make it up" now?, it was incredibly hard to accept that this is how it had to be for me to stay here and do my healing stuff. She had to back off in order for me to continue to learn lessons from her death. This was the period you may remember reading about on her website pages, where I mention instead hearing "from" her via others (some of them rather confused by it). She did maintain that contact but had to go and whisper in others' ears. I see now that it couldn't have been any other way but by gosh, how painful it was that I did not have firsthand contact with her myself anymore.

After she passed, of course I was utterly blinded by grief and she was nowhere. I now could not see nor hear her. I was incredibly distressed by this. And this song came in at one of those points of gaining more understanding of why our separation had had to occur. Indeed, I had just been learning about why she had even come to me at all.

Eeeeeeh. Too heavy for this time of the morning! Must go get that coffee.... must add this to the book. (Speaking of book - I shall give an update soon, promise, as I know some of you have been asking)

Forget Santa

The little man in the (fluorescent) green suit, astride a minibike that maxes out somewhere around 70km/h. That's who the LGBB is hoping for a visit from.

Yes. Postie. Rather *clears throat to get it right* "Poh-steeeeeeee"

She sees him in traffic, then again on a footpath in a different suburb on the same trip. There he is again, walking in to a shopping centre this time. What's this?? He's everywhere!

The little LGBB is so intrigued by this helmeted being who delivers mail (not so much letters to little boys and girls, but bills to their parents, sadly).

Keep your department and shopping centre Santa fill-ins. Postie is ever-present, year round.

Just brilliant

Today was Red Ray day. The Ray of Recovery. How pertinent is that, given the week that was (for me)? Awesome timing and not a year too soon...

I am full to brimming with recuperative efforts from the day. Finally, the tears I was damming fell amongst the most encouraging support - the best kind: that which does not allow martyrdom, victim mentality or spinning out. By the afternoon, the sadness I had come in with in the morning had given way to hearty hope and joy of the learning year to come. There are eleven more of these to do, three of which I have already done in the past five years, haphazardly and out of order (therefore with not as much meaning as I am bound to get when I redo them this year) and I am really looking forward to them all - so far.

It's hard work. But harder still would be to not do them, for this is my commitment to the Earth.

I'm totally plugged in and raring for the next one (White) next month.

Icksnay on the ipskay

If there is one word you must NEVER say around the LGBB, it is ....

Skips.

Skips are biscuits. Apparently (just ask her). I want her to get the word wrong for as long as possible, it's that adorable.

It is the most uttered word on a daily basis. So much so that a "skip ban" has been placed on her until the afternoons - mind you, "skips" are actually vegetable chips (the poor poppet, I am so nasty, she's never even been introduced to a milk arrowroot yet). Still, she woofs her artsy-fartsy pansy skips like they're triple-decker chocomochafudge-a-licious gold.

There was a moment a couple of weeks back where she knew she'd pushed it too far. I laid down the letter of the Skip Law. Since then, instead of directly asking, imploring, pleading and then begging (my leg), she has decided to take the bigger-person approach; she'll sit back, look around then casually enquire with hands in the shrug position, "Skips? Where skips gone?" Pause for an answer and for effect and then you hear, "I don' know where skips' gone." See? She's not asking or nagging for it is beneath her (yeah, right). She's simply calling her skips. "Oh, skiiiips? Where you gorn?" She's good. Going to definitely have to get up earlier and earlier as she gets older, just to collect my wits about me.

And when you look at her quizzically, after you can no longer avoid that steel-blue - rather, The Blue Steel?, as mastered by her dad inadvertently and evidenced in any existing photo of him to date - glare, you can be assured that she will square you up and repeat again.

"Skips."

If you then try and tilt your head on the side with a puzzled expression, she'll press on. Perhaps you're not understanding her. She'll say it slowww-er. And more clearly so you can fulfil her request.

"Bisskips."

Oh! Bisskips. How silly of me. I thought you said skips.