Ella's rose

The first rose for the year has bloomed on Ella's blue moon rose bush. I first posted the story about it last March, 2009. It's interesting to note the various times it decides to flower - if it does at all (for in 2008, it did not flower at all) - so it's always a very pleasant and welcome surprise, then, to see it begin to bud.

I was so taken by this year's first flower that I have put it in my new blog header *up there* ^^ but here is the photo in the raw:

And one more time, for those new to my blog or anyone who missed it, here is the story again:

The first rose

Ella's rose didn't flower last year.


It's a beautiful Autumn-blooming fragrant rose, deeply coloured with hues of pinks and purples. In full flower, it looks ridiculously gorgeous.


A childhood friend gave this gift to me five years ago, on her first (mercifully short, for we were still not great company) visit to see how we were going after Ellanor died. I remember looking at her standing in my kitchen, concern etched on her face, and me apologising that I just "can't do it, I can't be cheerful this time, Treen..." and she marvelled with me then that I was actually still standing. She didn't need me to "be" anything, she assured me. I could relax then, for I heard that she understood. But I was completely bereft. Concerned that the me I knew, who she knew, who all around me knew, was lost forever. I had always been able to make my friends smile, giggle, belly laugh in fact. Now, despite my sense of humour, I couldn't do it. I was heartbroken, doubly so that I was not being for my friends and family what they'd come to know and love. Would they love the new, broken me? The pain and fear was so huge.


This girl is salt of the Earth stuff. She's just great. I am ashamed to admit, I don't contact her nearly enough. Ours is one of those enduring friendships, across miles, across faith differences, across other mutual friendships that have ended around us. And always, there is this friend. We went to kindergarten together. Then high school. Then we parted ways. I married, she moved overseas to live. But even still, she's a firm fixture in my mind.


And the gesture that day, of giving us the rose, this "Eternal Moon" - from her and her family - is something I always give thanks for each time I pass by the planter at our front doorstep.


I don't know why I didn't plant it in the garden in my already thriving rose garden of our old place. A blessing, I guess, in disguise because I would have been very sad to part with it if ever we moved. I chose a heavy, simple sandstone planter - something that made two removalists groan and curse when they had to move it here last year - and have watched it wilting in this relentless heat.


I honestly don't know how I didn't see the buds on it. It's as if they literally sprung up overnight last night. Because today, a flash of colour caught my eye. Oh wow, two opening buds! And more. At least half a dozen more. I was doubting I'd ever see it flower to its former glory again, fearing the different conditions here (it's notably cooler, not more than ten minutes' drive up the road, like a more mountain climate - odd and interesting) and the changed aspect towards the sun now had screwed it for good.


But no. She blooms. She grows.

Intersections

I've been up for nearly an hour already. It's just gone 6am. Using my time wisely, I'm writing about my other daughter, the one who would be almost seven now.

At 4:43am today, our bedroom door burst open and in leapt the LGBB - yes, leapt - announcing in measured statement, "I had another scary, scary, SCARY dream and I won't go back to sleep very well." How eloquent. Before I had a chance to fire up my brain so it'd make my mouth say something (I had done that thing you do when you're up and standing with your child trying to comprehend what they're doing/telling you even though you're still asleep, back there, behind you, in your soft, warm bed), I scooped her up in to my arms and began to head towards her bedroom.

"Can I stay in your bed for a li'l bit?" she asked. I turned and wandered back to my bedside and bundled her in.

The LGBB slept soundly after that. I, however, was suddenly chock full of the remnants of this lingering nasty infection and, despite my endeavours not to cough and not to sneeze and blow my nose, I couldn't comfortably remain sandwiched between my two loves and not eventually wake them.

So here I sit. On my favourite comfy couch, watching the night mist lift off the hills, revealing the bush and intersections of the three criss-crossing ridges right outside my window. They look so close I feel I could almost reach out and touch them. The mist melds and merges, a life within a life of its own it seems, and I am reminded of the nature of all things getting on with what it is they do. Birds are beginning to fly around (they've been chirping since before 5am), there is the faintest hint of colour now on the top of the highest ridge as the sun finds it. Funny, I muse as I sit here, close to my work on the book, I am reminded that it was actually my first daughter's death that showed me the profundity of life.

Of course, my very first (fur) baby, Pepper, lies in a rather uneasy slumber at the window by my feet. For a dog who is edging towards the age of 18 and who has lived her life 'roughing it' outside in all weather - she's tough, it's an Australian Kelpie/Dingo thing, that's quite obvious now she is ailing and still doing it - she doesn't seem too perturbed to be made to at least sleep inside during the day on a dog bed. I just can't handle seeing her on the hard floorboards, not in her arthritic condition. She has been with me since day dot of this journey to parenthood. That she is still here, carrying the lantern so to speak, humbles and amazes me. The loss of her from our lives - for she has been in it since 1995 - will be a keen and sore one, when the day comes. My mother-heart very much encircles this very special canine "child" and the locking of her gaze with mine (she always wins, I always look away first! - testament to how often I don't allow myself time to stop still from my busyness and business to simply  be in the moment with her/something) confirms to me that she receives that connection as well.

I've not been up this early in a long while. Two joys intersecting with one circumstance: our daughter is comforted and sleeping peacefully in our bed, whilst being awake at this time has allowed me to fill back up, even if just a little, with the beauty of my natural surroundings.

Timely, I should think.


Sharing via the Thursday Mother Heart linky at Seven Cherubs' blog.

Brag pause

Minor break in my hiatus to just splurge about... well, nothing much in the scheme of things, really. I just wanted to say Hoy!

"We love it!" the client says. I love it too. "We absolutely love everything you've done..... Now... can we just move this here and change that picture over there and... see that colour there? We loooove it, really love it. But can you try it in this shade instead...."

I. Love. My. Job. Seriously, I do. But sometimes, like this time when you know you've produced something kick-ass, it's disappointing to have your design elements jacked around with.

Ahhhh well, they're paying me. And they are honestly the loveliest and most gracious clients who have given me the best content to work with [I mean, look at this guy's landscape design work! Genius..]. Therefore, I am here to do their bidding where their website is concerned...

ReadNorWriteNoFlo

I am in a bit of a writer's rut, at the end of an ardous few weeks. Health wise, I'm getting there. As I type this, I hear the LGBB coughing her lungs out (she is fast asleep), neither of us are sleeping soundly and haven't for a fortnight. Mercifully, Steve hasn't caught this (yet) and it is my firm intention to keep it that way. There is nothing quite so tedious as going through nursing your child, then yourself, to find you have a case of man-flu on your hands. To be fair, though, I'd humour him going to bed with this one, it's been right awful.

So. There's not much bloggy inspiration in me. No desire to use up the brain space for my dear, trusty blog. Instead, I've found myself drawn to looking at pretty, very pretty, things like this and this, all terribly gorgeous and dreamy and just letting my brain go "ahhhhhhh", much like looking at a photo of ABBA used to do (it still gives me a feeling of comfort, looking at that lot and remembering how very, very happy I was as a kid to dance around my grandparents' lounge room to Arrival and make up concerts and be Agnetha.... wha? shuddap, why're you looking at me like that?) and not feeling much like being the one doing the talking right now. I hereby advise I may not post for a little while after this one. There is a website project I need to finish up for a client (and it looks awesome, he's a landscape designer and I'm steeped in all these professional images of the most amazing formal backyards - those outdoor-room types - so am channeling a lot of my inspiration into that. And I've a tonne of readings to catch up on (loving my homework for the Tarot class!).

And finally, I can also see the last page of my book. I am *this* close to finishing now. Excruciating, the wait to see how it will end (even I don't know yet!).

Exciting times. Gruelling times. Bit draining on the old creative reserves, in fact. It's little wonder, really, that the mere thought of the pressure writing a post a day (or anywhere near that) for the month of November is enough to make me break out in hives. So I shan't even attempt to take part, piker that I may well be.

See you soon! I shall be reading and commenting wherever I go. Mwah-mwah, hugzzzz.


I cheated and linked this several days' old post to Lori's FlogYoBlog Friday  instead of writing a new one today... Have you joined the linky?

And what, pray tell, do I do with THIS?

I have this paragraph here. I've written it down. It was part of some larger train of thought for the book that I hope desperately will arrive at my house again - Polar Express style - so I can catch it and it'll take me where this was going. Because I lost it. My train of thought, that is.

There's something profound here. I know there is. Can you see it?

Oh..... Darn it all anyway (to quote Clarke Griswold)!! This one is really going to grip me until I nut it out.

    I thought it was going to be something to do with having a baby (being fulfilled and happy and joyful). But the more I looked around me, the more I saw parents who weren’t happy. Who were complaining. Who were, quite frankly, victimising their position because of their “lot in life”. But there were also others who had it far worse and yet, were genuinely happy.
    I pondered this point deeply over my days in our empty home. I came to the conclusion that it was less about the circumstances (of being childless) and more about personifying joy. Alone. On my own. Separate from Steve and anyone we knew or anything we owned. It seemed so easy that I almost overlooked it as being important at all.

Off with her head!

I have been in bed for three days. No easy feat with a four year-old. Mind you, the LGBB has been getting over the end of this nasty cold herself.

Seriously, in the middle there, I wanted to just sever my head at the neck. It may have been less uncomfortable. Ear ache, face ache (aka sinus pains from hell), head ache, blocked and runny nose (whaaaat? why not just one or the other?) and I've almost finished coughing up the complete Lego set to make my green fort. Seriously. How does the stuff on your lungs settle into lumps with sharp corners??*

I don't know, colds these days aren't "just" colds anymore, are they? Some strains can absolutely flatten you. I've had this for a week and there's not much let-up yet, although I can feel it's moving through, not settling in. No good when you're trying to run a house. Fortunately, Tuesday was a public holiday here so Steve was home. He and Lolly had a great day together. I stayed in bed. Yesterday, I hobbled her over to kindy and then hobbled back, did a bit of work (I was desperate to get to bed but am a tad more desperate to get paid at the moment) and then went and picked her up. Oh, how very fast three hours goes.

I am ashamed to say, the afternoon was spent under the covers - the two of us - watching movies. We watched The Wedding Singer and then The Polar Express. I was in agony. Lolly LOVED it. The closeness to me and my complete focus - albeit on my eyelids, even though she assumed I was watching with her - was tantamount to bliss for her. On more than one occasion, she cupped my face in her hands and gave me soft kisses and when I opened my eyes, she'd be grinning at me. My child has the most divine wide-mouthed smile. Her entire face beams. I was told, "I love you so, so, so much." And it made me grin too, despite the strain it placed on my snot-filled cheeks.

I wish I could be comfortable staying in bed and letting her have run of the house. Heck, I even wish I didn't mind her watching so much tv. But being that I was the only adult in the house and that I literally couldn't stay upright, I just couldn't rest. Not really. Not completely. I just have a "thing" about being in bed when the LGBB is not. So she had to stay with me. And because she stayed with me, and being four, there wasn't exactly much "rest' going on. By the time 5.30pm rolled around, I knew I would have to muster up some energy from somewhere and begin tea. If I didn't, we'd be waiting until 7 o'clock if I wanted Steve to help me. So I asked the LGBB earnestly if she would please stop moving so that Mummy could rest for a moment. The tv was off and she had stopped moving. Within a few minutes, she was asleep. And Mummy, being the opportunist, lifted her sore and weary head off the pillow and shuffled in to the kitchen to make dinner. Then I agonised over whether/when to wake her. She was obviously in need of sleep, her nights have been broken by bouts of coughing and sore tummy that have gone with this cold-bug-horridthing.

It's just how it goes, isn't it? With us, anyway, this is how it goes. Steve and I have.... well, only Steve and I to rely on. Oh how I wish for one parent, just one, to be both within reasonable driving distance and hands-on enough to just get in and do things for us. But we don't. So we make do.

After dinner (I had no appetite, I stayed in bed while the others ate), the LGBB went to bed and was happy to go to sleep straight away at 7.30 as per usual. I had taken Panadeine - something I rarely do but I was desperate - and by 9pm was just beginning to doze off and feel comfortable, when I heard her little voice. Crying to Steve, who was working still, and complaining of a sore tummy. She sounded a bit worried and quite upset. I knew he could handle it if I didn't get up.

But that instinct can't be settled. There is no way I, as a mother, could lie there feeling comfortable (even if it is after a day of pain!) if I know my child needs help. Even when the other parent is perfectly capable of settling her. So I got up and went to see what was up. Steve let me step in when she wasn't settling. I sat by the LGBB's side and explained to her the basic mechanics of food and where it goes. I had been trying to keep tabs on her bodily functions these past few days - hard when you're stuck in bed! - and in the back of my mummy-mind, I had flagged "Check this out" on the file marked "Bowel movements". It's been a few days since she's had normal function in that area (she says, tactfully) so I'm pretty sure by now there'd be some monster pains rearing up every so often. So I explained to Lolly that lots of sips of water all day would help, as well as a warm pack and some gentle rubbing of her tummy.

Hearing all this, she settled down. And then did one almighty trumpet that ruffled her sheets. After much guffawing, the LGBB was back out like a light (she is obviously still not well because normally that would never happen).

When I was walking back up the hall to bed, feeling very light-headed and giddy on my feet, I marvelled at how everything in my own body is put aside in order to attend to my child. I rely on that, I count on it, to step in and give me everything I need countless times during any given day. But I don't often notice it, not until I feel so ill myself. I am not sure there would be too many things that would keep me from my child's bedside.

How about you? What happens when you're sick? Do you have other adults around who help? Do you recognise that part of yourself that "kicks in" even when you are in the throes of trying to kick an illness yourself?

 This is part of the weekly Thursday Mother Heart linky.

That's us in 2008, back when she didn't notice a camera at ten paces

* My most sincere and humble apologies for that visual

Bathtime cocktails

It's a kind of bubbly....

After a hard day's toddling, it's no wonder the LGBB needs to unwind with some bubbles and a good book.

And now, I'm very, very, very excited to announce the winners of this little ol' blog's FIRST EVER give-away! (I should do this more often.... Note to self: Must put on To Do list)

I'm really grateful to those who assisted with my cocktail making endeavours, I only wish I had more than two of these fantabulous Cocktails At Naptime freebies to give away. But I don't. And so, without further ado, the winners are..... *tap your glasses*

MMBB for the Tropical Sunrise of Awesomeness (that better taste like the Happy she claims, and sounds like it sure will)
Jodie at Mummy Mayhem because a Margarita is something that always sounds so fancy and yet... looky here! Can it really be so simple? Slushies for all!

So, ladies, get in touch with me (email is best, it's up the top there somewhere, or in my profile, ohmygod I'm hopeless with directions) and tell me your postal address! Congratulations!

For your own chance to win a freebie book, why not enter the competition Finch Publishing have got going here?