Taking stock: June 2015.

So, it’s been a few months since I’ve been here, and a lot has happened in that time. The two biggest things being:

• Little Red turned one – yeah, I know, wow. And I haven’t dropped her on her head yet! (Well, not if you don’t count her falling off the bed and/or couch on my watch.)
• I completed my Bachelor of Health Science (Western Herbal Medicine) – another one to hang on the wall and 6.5 years in the making! (Technically, it was 5ish years of actual study, if you take away my time off for child rearing and travel, but January 2009 seems so very long ago.)

We had a nice little party for Little Red, who was spoilt rotten by our beautiful family and friends. I baked awesome dairy-, sugar- and gluten-free chocolate cakes, crafted a ‘1’ out of them, and iced and decorated it. Not a bad first effort, even if I say so myself. Some people even seemed to enjoy eating it.

Then I buckled back down, immersing myself in my books, PubMed and Google Scholar, fuelling my last weeks of study with dandelion and liquorice chai, chocolate and leftover party treats (I’m surprised they lasted more than a couple of days, actually).

With impeccable timing, Little Red went through a huge sleep regression-cum-teething-cum-wonder week for the final month or so of my course. She would only sleep if I stroked her face or held her hand. Cute, yes. But not between 1 and 6am. Sleep is so overrated (said no mum ever).

And where am I now?

• Making: Up for all that ‘lost’ (study) time in the garden. Weeds ahoy!
• Cooking: Dahl in my slow cooker – a hand-me-down from my mum that still works a treat. I think it may even be older than me.
• Drinking: Tea (and lots of it) out of a huge I *heart* New York mug. It’s the best.
• Reading: Can you believe I STILL haven’t finished Buddism for mothers? Or even opened it since I last completed one of these things. I am in between books but about to start The Claimant by Janet Turner Hospital, a pressie from my sister.
• Wanting: To stop seeing so much sad stuff about kids in the news. Actually, I really want that sad stuff to stop happening to kids.
• Looking: Forward to our minibreak to Port Douglas.
• Playing: Ball with Little Red.
• Deciding: What to do with my life now I’ve finished my degree.
• Wishing: Someone would tell me what to do with my life now I’ve finished my degree.
• Enjoying: Cups of tea and cakes/slices/chocolate/bliss balls for lunch.
• Waiting: For my boy to get home from his Sydney work sojourn.
• Liking: All this rain and cold weather. And the fact I get to break out my cosy woolen gear from South America. I must look like such a (very, very warm and stylish) tourist.
• Wondering: When I’ll get back to South America.
• Loving: Having a cleaner.
• Pondering: What would be the best climbing frame for my snow peas. The construction I made out of old trellis keeps blowing over in the wind. And it’s not even been that windy. MacGyver I am not (always).
• Considering: A nap.
• Buying: A Nutribullet. Excitement!
• Watching: 
Love Child via catch up TV online. Totally addicted.
• Hoping: I make good use of said Nutribullet, otherwise my boy might have something to say about it.
• Marvelling: At how unbelievably affectionate and adoring Bella is. No matter how many times I tell her to get off my lap, she still comes back and gives me head butts so hard that I spill my hot chocolate.
• Cringing: At my lack of technical know-how and observation skills. I asked the JB HiFi girl guru for a cable to connect my computer to the TV so I could watch Love Child in the lounge room with the good heater (#firstworldproblems). Turns out I can use the same cable that I use to connect my computer to the other TV. Apparently every TV produced in the past seven years has a HDMI connection. Bet you didn’t know that. (Neither did I. But it turns out ours has three. You just need to look hard enough.)
• Needing: To stop procrastinating and go to bed earlier.
• Questioning: Why I’ve signed up to so many blogs and newsletters. My inbox is overflowing.
• Smelling: Little Red’s hair. (I am SO soft these days.)
• Wearing: Wintery garb – scarves, wraps, gloves, big boots, wooly jumpers, knitted socks, and sometimes a blanket.
• Following: Little Red around the house, making sure she doesn’t eat the electrical cords or stick her fingers in any power points. (We really need to baby proof the house.)
• Noticing: The gorgeous colours in the sky. The sunrises and sunsets, and the everyday shades of blue, grey and white, have been so beautiful lately.
• Knowing: I should make better use of these few days I have off between uni ending and going back to work, while Little Red is in daycare. I’m torn between doing renovations or housework, and spending all day drinking tea and watching movies, reading books or writing.
• Thinking: I should watch Monarch of the Glen. I always meant to and it looks like my kind of show.
• Admiring: My handiwork in the garden (apart from the trellis construction lying prostate on top of the onions).
• Sorting: Out my uni notes. (Well, it’s on my list and I'll get around to it.)
• Getting: Equal parts excited and nervous about my first long-haul, big overseas adventure with a toddler at Christmas time.
• Bookmarking: All sorts of recipes I’ll probably never make.
• Coveting: Little Red’s cuddles.
• Disliking: The lack of Love Tea stockists in my area. Has no one tried their Dandelion chai?
• Opening: Suitcases so I can pack for our trip, and hoping there are no white tail or red back spiders inside.
• Giggling: About how the beep from the text message my boy sent me woke mum up (she was snoring in the arm chair nearby). My parents just got back from a big overseas trip, so they are a wee bit jet lagged and partial to afternoon naps (actually, who isn't partial to them?).
• Feeling: Pretty relaxed. I haven’t done too much more than hang out with my parents and Little Red, and drink tea and eat biscuits/cake today.
• Snacking: On tasty little cookies and bliss balls I found in the local organic shop.
• Helping: The cleaner. (Seriously, what is wrong with me?)
• Hearing: Rain on the roof. Bella purring in my ear. The new Laura Marling album my boy bought me as a congratulations-for-finishing-your-degree present. Bliss.

Did I mention I finished my degree?

Ch... Ch... Changes.

David Bowie is a lyrical genius. This song in particular is getting serious airplay on my iPhone lately. Probably because in the past few weeks (actually, the past few years), I’ve had quite a few big changes that have left me happy and sad and all the colours in between.

Sadly or not so sadly, depending on how you look at it, change is inevitable. It will keep you on your toes, and often the best way to deal with it is to roll with it. To face it and change with it. (I could add that in an embarrassing mondegreen I also thought Bowie was saying that he couldn’t change time, which makes a lot more sense to me than the actual lyrics of trace time, but I won’t go there.)

So, what’s been happening around here that’s left me feeling all sentimental and soppy? The end of an era, really. It feels like the interval between primary school and high school, or high school and whatever came after it for you (university for me), or the end of university and entering the big bad real world. It’s moving countries or leaving lovers. It’s the old bitter-sweet grief for the past, the good and bad bits of it, and anticipation and hope for what lies ahead. It’s the end of maternity leave as I’ve known it.

The past nine or so months have flown by in a sleep-deprived, tea- and chocolate-fuelled, walking, swimming, TV series haze. Through this time, I’ve done a lot, but not done half of what I had planned.

I think of the gardening I didn’t do, the renovations that still need doing, the stories and blogs I didn’t finish (or even start), the business I never set up, the university work I didn’t revise, the baking that never happened, the new recipes I didn’t master, the books I didn’t read, and the TV series I never watched.

I had high hopes for maternity leave and now it’s drawing to a close, I’m going to miss it.   

I hear the theme song to Downton Abbey and get sentimental flashes of sitting on the fit ball, bouncing and singing Little Red to sleep, or curling up on the couch for a break while she naps, sipping a cup of tea and inhaling a lactation cookie or four as I watch Mary rebuff her latest suitor.

Now the weather is cooling again, I sit on the deck with a blanket around my shoulders and write this, remembering the mornings I meditated out here, all rugged up in the winter sunshine, while Little Red napped.

I think of writing at my desk, sometimes alone, sometimes with Little Red snuggled into my chest with me typing one handed before I resorted to playing nursery rhymes on YouTube to entertain her because I was too tired to do anything else.

I think of those first few days of breastfeeding awkwardness and agony before we gelled. And I think of the hours I’ve spent feeding her, in the morning with my mum sitting beside me, drinking tea, knitting and watching ABC News; in the afternoons at mother’s group or watching The Chase; at dinner time as I shovelled dhal or salad into my mouth with a spoon, trying not to drop too much on the baby as I balanced her on one side; and in bed as my eyes involuntarily closed no matter what time of the night it was, and I’d wake minutes or hours later, Little Red asleep in my arms, my boobs hanging out, my chin on my chest, my neck and back aching.

As the girls in my mothers’ group and I have started carving out time for ourselves and creating lives that no longer revolve entirely around nappies, feeding and sleep (actually, food and sleep are still high on the list), our catch ups are becoming fewer and far more inbetween. And it’s not just the excuse for a chai latte and sweet treat I’m missing.

These beautiful, intelligent, loving, creative, clever, strong and resourceful women, whom I met when Little Red was just six weeks old, and I bonded over milky vomit, breastfeeding and wind woes, pelvic floor discomfort, swaddling dilemmas and sleep deprivation (ours and our babies’). We all had the same shell-shocked look in our eyes at the start, and I think we all experienced sheer panic and overwhelm at the responsibility before us. We fumbled and felt our way through those first few weeks and months, gradually growing in confidence and supporting each other in times of self doubt. And now we are gradually taking small steps away from each other as our lives change and grow in new ways.

A few weeks ago, Little Red started going to daycare. I spent the first day she was there in a confused blur of conflicting emotion. I felt the first real sense of freedom and independence I’d felt in almost a year. That mingled with an overwhelming, niggling feeling that I’d forgotten something really important, like my arm or leg or phone. This was coloured by a sense of love, yearning and loss, like those pangs of heartbreak you experience when you get unceremoniously dumped in high school. I was surprisingly a little teary that first day, but I kept busy by painting the kitchen ceiling, seeing a movie and getting a massage. I fought picking her up early and went for a walk instead. And when I did collect her, I hugged her hard and smothered her with kisses until she went to bed.

Little Red seems to be thriving at daycare and the staff there are lovely. But each day she is there, I fight the mother guilt that I should be more of a 1950s-style housewife, content with household duties, baking and childrearing (I’m sure my boy would like this too). This is oh so not who I am. Instead, with some time to myself, I’m a happier, slightly more balanced me, with more love and patience to share around.

I have postponed my return to work for a few months, so I can I finish the final semester of my course (yay!). I feel more and more like pre-baby me, just with more to do each day. My brain is very slowly catching up. When I finish my course at the end of May, there will be even more changes afoot. I’m not sure what shape these will take yet, but I’m sure they’ll be as exciting and amazing as I make them.

And that’s the thing. Change can be good or bad, depending on how you view it and what you make of it. We are programmed to change and progress. If we weren’t, if we never, ever changed, we’d still be living in caves or roaming the wide, open spaces and sleeping under bushes. Granted, not all progress has been for our benefit (hello nuclear weapons) but most of it has, on a physical, emotional, spiritual or mental level (or some combination of any or all of these).

Change makes you who you are. You can fight it all you want, but change will happen, and really, like fighting a rip in the ocean, it’s so much easier to just go with it, to even encourage it, so you can keep breathing, keep living. And I for one quite like my cushy bed and four walls. Don’t you?

A momentous day.

The 27th of February 2006 will go down in (my) history as a particularly momentous day. The reasons for this are two-fold. 

1. It's my boy's birthday.

2. It's the day we met.

Like any good love story, ours starts with booze.

One of my best friends, whom I’ll call CC, told me about this party she was going to. Her boyfriend (now husband) had these friends who lived up the road and it was one of their birthdays. (My boy’s birthday.) They were having a big house party.

You should come, she said.

Nah, I don’t want to crash someone’s party. I don’t know them.

They won’t care. They want to meet you. And (my boy’s) brother works for the Herald Sun. He might be able to get you a job.

Yeah, maybe.

A couple of months earlier I’d got back from London, where I’d been living for the previous three years. I was job hunting and the pickings were slim. This was a tempting prospect.

That night I turned up at CC’s house, where her and a couple of our other friends were having a pre-party party. I was late, so we quickly downed a couple of shots and got a taxi to the party (five minutes up the road).

CC and I went straight to the kitchen to put our drinks in the fridge, moving the milk to the fridge door to make room for our wine. The door’s shelf dropped to the floor and milk splashed across the tiles. CC and I quickly mopped up the milk, hoping no one would notice (or want weetbix for breakfast).

CC introduced me to the boys and I talked with the few people I knew there, before my boy and I drifted off from the rest of the crowd to talk among ourselves for the rest of the night. As he led me out from the kitchen into the garden where the rest of the party was, a voice in my head spoke clearly through the vodka–wine haze.

Pay attention, it said. This one is important. 

(I guess it sometimes pays to listen to those voices in your head.)

When it was time for me to go, he asked me for my number. I said no. 

Now, I’d been seeing someone in England and it wasn’t completely over, although I’d moved back to Melbourne for good. So it didn't quite feel right to give my number to a guy. But I didn’t intervene when I overheard my boy asking CC for my number while I waited outside for her.

He called a day or two later and we went to the Sydney Road Festival, where we ate Hare Krishna balls and drank sangria and beer. I made our friends come along, so it wasn't a ‘date date’. He walked me home, and when I hugged him goodbye, I squeezed him so tightly that I broke the sunglasses that were hanging from his collar.

We hung out a few more times, but things were still up in the air with the English guy and I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with myself. Career prospects were limited in Melbourne compared with London, and Australia felt so remote, so parochial. So alien. I needed to move again.

Fast forward a year and a bit and I had decided to move back to London for good, to work and clear my head. The English guy was history, and my boy and I had been on and off for some time. As I cried my way through security at Tullamarine Airport and onto the plane, my boy broke his promise to make a grand, romantic comedy-esque gesture. He didn’t show up at the gate, Hugh Grant style, begging me to stay. I’d told him I wanted to go alone and he did as I asked (this is the first and only time he has done this).

Not long after I moved back to England, my boy went incommunicado with me. It was make or break time.

I got in touch with him and we exchanged letters, emails, phone calls and text messages. I booked my ticket home.

When one of my English cousins (who’d wrangled a work trip to Melbourne) and I walked through the arrivals door at Tullamarine, my boy was standing there in his best press stud check shirt. He'd shaved and was drinking a take-away coffee. 

And beside him stood my parents.

I was expecting to see my parents there too. They driven three hours especially to collect my cousin and take most of my belongings back to their house. I just wasn’t expecting to see them standing with my boy, you know, considering they’d never met before and everything.

Apparently my boy had been looking for my parents among the crowd. He’d seen a woman standing the same way I do and thought he had nothing to lose. He walked over to her and asked if she was my mum. Luckily she was.

Mum told me later that she’d been eyeing off the men there that night. The drongos and derros, she said. They’d looked rough and dirty. She was happy to see that this one was wearing a nice shirt, was clean shaven and polite. He’d approached her, so he must have balls, she thought.

We moved in together about a month later. I got a good job, the kind I’d wanted for years. We rented a nice unit in a pretty street in a great part of town (not far from where CC and her boy lived). We bought our first major white good appliance – a washing machine that was half price, no less! We got a kitten. I started studying a course I’d wanted to do for more than 10 years. We travelled.

Nine years after that momentous day, we are married with two cats, a baby and a mortgage. I am six months away from finishing that course. The fridge with the dodgy door is still going relatively strongly and is at home in the corner of our kitchen. (It has also seen the end of a couple of bottles of wine and tubs of yoghurt over these years.)

Every now and then we joke and ask if either of us imagined that night where we’d be today. 

Happy birthday, my boy. 

Travelling is all in the mind.

Do you ever forget where you are for a second? I’m not talking about the experience of being in a foreign bed and waking with a start in the middle of the night, trying to find a patch of light so you can identify a cupboard or picture that reminds you that you’re staying in a hotel or your Aunt’s spare room.

I mean the feeling where the scenery, smells, sounds, light, temperature and hundreds of other various subtle elements combine to remind you of a place you’ve visited or lived in before. These instances can be so detailed and complete that you sometimes think you’re there, even if just for a second.

I love this feeling. I embrace and nurture it. I want it to linger. (Especially now that the type of travel I enjoyed in my 20s and early 30s is on hold until I can convince my boy it’s safe to take Little Red to India, Nepal, Patagonia, Jordan, Tunisia, Estonia, Latvia, Tibet and Guatamala. And that she’d love to go down the Amazon in a boat, or visit the Mayan ruins or any other place I have on my very long list.)

So often now I am reminded of somewhere I’ve visited, be it the tropics in South East Asia and the Pacific, the jungle and forests in South America, or the suburban streets of England and America.

Early some mornings I stand out on the deck and take a moment. I listen to the neighbours’ chickens stirring. The air is still cool, but a little muggy, with the promise of the heat to come. The haze in the sky dulls the light, and there are threads of mist in the trees. It’s mostly quiet, with the occasional hum of a car or voice or the cicadas’ call.

These things remind me of India and I feel a pang of longing. Each morning of my stay in Makaibari, I’d get up early with my host family. The eldest daughter would bring me hot, sweet local tea, sometimes laced with ginger, knocking softly on my bedroom door and leaving it on the coffee table. I’d go outside and stand on the porch of their home to drink it, rugged up in my hoodie and trousers, warming my hands on their best cup (that had a lid!) and inhaling the steam. The air was still quite cool from the night, but there was a hint of the humid warmth that would make the afternoon’s home clinic visits in surrounding villages hot work. The air smelt of dust and dirt and leaves, spices and incense, and sometimes a hint of rain.

My host family lived half way up the hill upon which the village stood. From their porch, I had clear views into their neighbours’ yards, and on clear days, I could see past the prayer flags that flicked and flapped in the wind, into the valley and across to the blue-grey mountains in the distance.

I loved watching and listening to the village as it started its day. People washed themselves and their dishes in pots with the precious water their children had carried up from the spring in old plastic oil, petrol and soft drink containers. Some ate breakfast on the concrete steps outside their doors. They fed their dogs and cats scraps, absent-mindedly throwing food onto the ground at their feet. Chickens ran free in the yards, bathing themselves in dust and dirty water, and chattering happily among themselves. Some people checked the tufts of green that filled their small vegetable plots, tugging at strings that fastened stems to sticks in the ground.

The sky had a constant haze, which gave the morning light a pearl grey tinge. By lunch time, and with the aid of a breeze, this haze rose a little to allow more sunlight and warmth through. But it was always there – as it was across all of the India I’ve seen. Sadly this is indicative of the pollution that plagues the country (and leaves visitors with a perpetually blocked nose and sinuses).

Behind me, in the corridor inside the home, the family’s grandfather would say his morning prayers. At dawn he lit incense and waved it around the doors, mumbling what I imagined to be his hopes and wishes, and giving gratitude. He spoke no English, but always gave me a warm smile and nod as I passed him on his way to and from the village temple or his vegetable garden.

I miss the peace of those mornings (and having someone bring me tea as soon as I wake). Standing on the deck at home, with that certain light and cool, listening to the chickens chatter and coo to one another, reminds me of that simple, quiet time, the pause before the day busied and warmed.

Sometimes I walk around our neighbourhood and am reminded of the suburbs in London in Spring. The slow, gentle warming of the ground, still cool from winter. The dense, leafy gardens shading heavy-set red brick homes, fence lines dotted with rose bushes drooping slightly with the weight of their flowers. Daffodils popping up randomly in the grass.

When I swim laps at my local pool, I am taken back to the President Hotel in La Paz. My boy and I holed up there for a day or two when one of our flights was cancelled. To try to even out the plentiful Pisco Sours and Ecuadorean chocolate I consumed, I did 100 laps of the 10-metre hotel pool, covered by a filthy glass roof, where pigeons perched on the edge overlooking the city and rain pitted the grime. Palms stood tall, browning, in pots in the corners of the room. The tiles around the pool were cracked and their style so dated it was almost new again. I can smell the thick chlorine and feel my annoyance with the hairy-backed, big-bellied man who let his two boys jump and splash around us without any consideration.

Other times, the heavy humidity after a summer storm makes me think of the tropics, of Thailand or Fiji or even the Amazon. The air smells moist and earthy, sweet and floral. Droplets of water cling to the trees and bushes, and birds chirp happily now the storm has passed, shaking water from their feathers. There’s a strange feel of newness, of excitement and anticipation. It’s cooler, but ever so sticky. And you start to perspire at the mere thought of walking. Light filters through the clouds that are starting to break apart, and all of a sudden you’re caught in a bright, warm ray that burns. And it’s hot.

These moments keep me going when my feet get that familiar itchiness, when I get restless and irritable, and my next trip seems so far in the future. They remind me that I’m lucky to have these memories at all, to know what it’s like to have been in those places and experienced those things. They remind me to be grateful for the opportunities I’ve had, and the ones I will have in the future. Because I’m sure there will be many more to come (just as soon as I convince my boy that Little Red will love to travel as much as her mum does).

Taking stock: February 2015.

We’re one month and a bit into 2015. I’ve been enjoying a week of sunshine (and rain) in Byron Bay with my boy and Little Red. What better time to take stock again?

• Making: More time to write. (That’s one of my goals for this year anyway. So far it’s a slow starter.)
• Cooking: Not a lot because we’re away. Salad and cups of tea is really the extent of it.
• Drinking: Cocktails. I was 32 weeks’ up the duff when I was here last time, so my indulgence extended to a few special mocktails, smoothies and herbal tea. This time around, I’m splashing out on pisco sours, lychee martinis, lychee caipirinhas and wine. (And smoothies and herbal tea.)
• Reading: Heroic Australian Women in War (it was smaller to fit in my bag than Buddhism for mothers, which I’m still reading, oh so very slowly). And Diggers’ Club magazines that have been piling up on my coffee table for the past 18 months.
• Wanting: More time here to read and write (and a nanny to look after Little Red so I can do these things).
• Looking: Forward to some kind of routine again when I go back to uni. I’m a creature of habit, what can I say?
• Playing: Where’s Little Red? This is similar to peek-a-boo, except that Little Red pulls something (book, toy, sheet, clothes) over her face to hide from me, then drops it and looks at me with a gummy grin.
• Deciding: What to have for breakfast. Vegan chocolate mousse cake is winning so far.
• Wishing: I had better self control when it comes to food! (See ‘Thinking’ and ‘Snacking’ below.)
• Enjoying: My cup of vanilla chai and some quiet while Little Red naps (hopefully for longer than 30 minutes this time).
• Waiting: For my reiki appointment. It’s been years since I had a treatment. I’m a bit excited.
• Liking: Early morning strolls along the beach.
• Wondering: How many vegan chocolate cakes/balls/slices I can fit into my bag to take home.
• Loving: How lovely everyone is here – they are all so relaxed, friendly and kind. Yesterday I was on the way back to the apartment with Little Red, who was screaming up a storm in her stroller. A hippy surfer guy in his 20s walked past, dreads, old threads, stretched ear lobes, guitar in hand. A walking sterotype. He saw Little Red’s tears and immediately started playing some music to distract and cheer her as he walked by. What a beautiful, thoughtful man! Similarly, the staff in a bottle shop whipped out a toy for Little Red during another episode, and ran outside after her to give it to her as my boy wheeled her away so she didn’t scare off the other customers. I didn’t even mind that it was an NFL football covered in the Wild Turkey logo. It immediately stopped her tears. What a lovely gesture!
• Pondering: This question. I’ve seriously been stuck on it for hours and have come up with nothing that I’ve been or am pondering. Except this question.
• Considering: A self-imposed Facebook and internet limit per day. Or maybe whole days without them each week. I seem to have developed a wee addiction and spend far too much time online. That time could be far more wisely spent.
• Watching: Two parents by the pool with their six-month-old son. We chatted with them two days ago when we were there swimming with Little Red and they’d just arrived. Their son is blind (and I think may have other disabilities). But he is absolutely gorgeous and his parents absolutely adore him and dote on him. It’s like they’re surrounded by a bubble of love, warmth, gentleness and beauty. It radiates out from them and draws you in.
• Hoping: The house sitters have weeded the garden for me. It was getting a bit out of hand. They said they were enjoying pottering in the garden while we were away. Pottering = weeding, yes?
• Marvelling: At how much Little Red is growing. I know it’s incredibly annoying and dull when parents say this sort of stuff about their kids, and I’m not usually one for sentiment or soppiness, but she’s growing so fast and it’s amazing to watch her learn things. In a matter of weeks she’s started clapping, pointing, waving, stretching, saying Dad (and other syllables) and drinking from a straw. She also says Ta (in a distinctly Darth Vader-esque voice) as she passes you something or you give her something. She’s almost crawling and pulling herself up on things. And she quite likes pulling you close and giving you big, sloppy, open-mouth kisses on whatever part of you she can reach and hold. This old ice heart of mine is melting.
• Needing: More sleep (some things never change). We are all sharing a room here. Little Red has taken to waking any time after 4 am. After her initial grizzling, she sometimes naps again til about 5.30 am, then it’s tears til one of us gets her up and changes her and I feed her in bed with me. After milk, she starts laughing and yabbering “dad dad dad dad”, which wakes up Chris, and we all get up and walk down to the beach to watch the early birds swimming and surfing. We have to do this before getting our coffee/tea, because we’re out and about BEFORE the coffee/tea places open. I kid you not. Little Red is also not entirely partial to napping for long periods here. I, on the other hand, would love a sleep in and a long nap. Several sleep ins and long naps, actually.
• Smelling: A sun shower. I love rain.
• Wearing: Floaty summer dresses. Pretty turquoise sandals I bought in Sucre, Bolivia. Big, dangly seashell earrings. Sunnies.
• Following: The predicted leadership spill being discussed in the media.
• Noticing: How young and relaxed the backpackers here seem. There are SO MANY travellers here. Responsibility free, fancy free, mortgage free, study free, baby free. I used to be a backpacker/traveller. Sigh.
• Knowing: That even though I look longingly at said backpackers/travellers/those who are younger and more free than me, I wouldn’t trade where I am or who I am now for anything. (Most of the time.)
• Thinking: I really should stop buying vegan cakes ‘just because I can’. I just ate another piece of cake (technically a chocolate fudge slice – it was delicious). And I have two and a half bliss balls, two and a half pieces of cake, and three packets of chocolate in the fridge. And I will probably buy more cake tomorrow before we leave.
• Admiring: Is it wrong to say I admire those parents with their boy down by the pool? I could be wrong, but I imagine it’d be pretty hard raising a child with a disability, no matter how gorgeous he is. They seem to be doing it with such grace.
• Sorting: The past few weeks I have actually been sorting out notes for uni. I am no where near finished mind you, but I’m hoping that my teachers see my (attempt at) preparation and organization and add at least 10% to my final grade ‘for effort’.
• Buying: Pretty much everything in stock at Naked Treaties – and then some. I think my annual visits here keep the store in business for the intervening months.
• Getting: A little nervous about going back to uni and seeing real, live patients. Eek! Any volunteers?
• Bookmarking: Recipes from Wholefoods Simply. The food looks so simple, but so delicious.
• Disliking: Mosquitoes. One just bit my shoulder and forehead. The feeling apparently is not mutual – mosquitos love munching on me.
• Opening: A nice bottle of red later, to share with my boy.
• Giggling: Mostly at Little Red. She’s pretty cute. She waves at everyone and everything, crosses her legs at the ankles and sits back like a lady (when she isn’t sitting legs spread-eagled in her stroller), babbles incessantly but most seriously, laughs when we laugh, and gives beautiful kisses. And you can’t help but smile in confusion at her bizarre husky, breathy, growly ‘Ta’.
• Feeling: Pretty relaxed after a lovely massage at Relax Haven.
• Snacking: Wow. What isn’t there for me to snack on in Byron? All sorts of fruity, nutty, chocolatey balls. Vegan cakes, slices, cheesecake and chocolates. Dips, corn chips, olives, dolmades.
• Coveting: Holiday houses. I’d love to be rich enough to own one or two. But then I guess you’d tied into going to the same place each holiday, and that might get boring.
• Wishing: Time would slow down, just a wee bit. Week one of February 2015 is almost done and I still feel like it’s June 2008.
• Helping: An old man down the stairs after a movie last week. He was a bit bashful about accepting my proffered arm, but seemed grateful. We both agreed that The Water Diviner is quite a good film. After seeing it, I want to dig out my CD of Whirling Dervish music.
• Hearing: The waves breaking on the beach about 100 metres away from our apartment, and the birds chattering in the bushes and trees all around. Bliss.

Seven good books (in my book).

Books have always been magical to me. They open up whole new worlds – adventure, history, drama, love, humour, magic, courage, heroism and spiritualism. They give you an insight into how other people think and act, what their day-to-day lives are or were like, what inspires them and what defeats them. I’ve always used them as a way to switch off and escape from wherever I am or whatever I’m feeling.

Books don’t demand much from you, and are pretty trustworthy and reliable. They aren’t inclined to treat you badly, or disappoint or judge you. And they offer adventure, escapism, excitement and comfort, and teach you all sorts of things.

I took solace in this growing up and into my early 20s, when I wasn’t such a fan of people and a little disillusioned by life in general. The best New Year’s Eve I’ve ever had was when I was about 16. I spent the evening sitting in an armchair at my parents’ house, reading a book from cover to cover with a cup of tea.

However, not many of the books I’ve read really stand out. Well, not the ones that were supposed to. I couldn’t tell you which books I studied in year 12 Literature or throughout my Bachelor of Arts Literature major, or which stories teachers used to inspire us in my Diploma of Arts in Professional Writing and Editing.

When I’ve been swimming lately, I’ve been thinking about some of the books that have stood out. With each lap, I retell their stories or certain scenes in my head, 
and I feel that same sense of escape and wonder that I did when I first read them.

For various reasons, these books have elicited strong feelings in me, and their stories remain with me. Sometimes I’m surprised about what has actually stuck with me. Sometimes I’m a little disappointed (why is it I can remember details in a novel revolving around a cat, but not the names of any of the award-winning, highly acclaimed and influential literature I studied at school or university?).

Here’s a little about seven of these memorable tomes.

1. A Woman in Berlin by Anonymous (AKA Marta Hillers).

This book was originally published anonymously, but the author was identified soon afterwards. If you read this book, you will understand why she tried to remain anonymous. 

This isn’t a pretty or nice book. It’s a rather harrowing and depressing account of Berlin’s occupation by Soviet forces towards the end of World War II. Specifically how nasty and violent the soldiers were to the women and children left behind, the conditions they faced, and what German women did do to survive. It raises all sorts of interesting questions, like how far should someone go to protect themselves, and whether those actions make them strong or weak, good or bad, or just human.

This book left me feeling ever so flat, cranky, sad and disillusioned with the world. Only I didn’t realise the book was making me feel this way until I’d almost finished it. Why do I list it here if it made me feel so horrible? Because I still think about it. It was real and honest and those things happened. They are probably still happening in place we hear about on the news (and in places we don’t hear about on the news). This kind of book gives you an insight into how people think and what they will do to stay alive, and how they rationalize things in extreme circumstances. And it makes you think about what you’d do in the same situation.

2. Stasiland by Anna Funder 

Mainly I love this book because I wanted to be Anna Funder – speaking fluent German and living in Berlin researching history in German, learning about spies and soldiers and government secrets. 

I also love this book for its content. The stories Anna tells 
are fascinating, real-life tales of how people lived behind 
the Berlin Wall and in Germany overall after the war. 
The conditions, risks and restrictions they faced, how 
these things affected their lives, and how they managed 
or overcame them.

Anna interviews people from both sides of the tracks – the Stasi as well as the people (their victims). Again, it raises all sorts of questions about how far people will go to survive in extreme circumstances.

When I first read this book, I was so taken with it that I made a guy I was dating read it. He loved it so much, he read it twice and when we broke up, I had to demand it back. He’d folded the corners to mark his page. If we didn’t split up then, we definitely would have once I’d discovered this fact.

3. After Cleo: Came Jonah by Helen Brown.

This is where things turn a little less high brow. My mum’s friend loaned her this book, and mum loaned it to me. I wasn’t that keen to read it, to be honest. It looked like mainstream, trashy, old lady, girly pulp fiction type drivel to me. But you know what, I couldn’t put it down. And I’m dying to know what happened to the family and their cat.

It’s a biography of sorts, written by a woman who adopts a troubled cat, whose daughter moves overseas to live in a monastery, and who is diagnosed with breast cancer. It sounds quite melodramatic, but it is actually very engaging and beautiful. It considers all kinds of relationships, love, loss, freedom, faith and independence, with a bit of humour and quirkiness. It was easy to read and follow, and light and happy and positive. A genuinely nice book that proves you can't judge 
a book by its cover (ha!).

4. The Kashmir Shawl by Rosie Thomas.

My mother-in-law gave me this for my birthday not long after I’d returned from India. It flicks between the past, with a newly wed couple doing their thing in India as missionaries as British rule falls, and the present, with their granddaughter discovering her grandmother’s Kashmir shawl in her dead mother’s drawers and deciding to trace its – and her grandparents – history. Naturally she uncovers a secret and falls in love in the process.

I took me a little to get into it, but after a chapter or two, 
I was hooked. It’s quite a gentle, beautiful story. I was taken with the idea of someone being inspired to drop everything to go overseas because of a beautiful shawl. So spontaneous and irresponsible and adventurous! I also loved the relationships that developed between the characters, past and present, and how the characters themselves grow.

The book must have been pretty well written, because I can still see many of the scenes in my mind – the Irish fields, Swiss mountain ranges, and Indian houseboats, gardens, villages, mountain crossings and rabid dogs. An imaginary visual feast, if you like.

5. Shadow of the Moon by MM Kaye.

Now, this is a sweeping, melodramatic saga if ever there was one. This book is one of my mum’s favourites – I have no idea how many times she’s read it or how many copies of it she’s owned. I was skeptical when she gave it to me and told me to read it. But it was worth every one of those 800-odd pages.

Shadow of the Moon follows a family over several generations as they are involved with and affected by the British rule of India and India’s ultimate fight for independence. It features several love stories, with a good dose of honour, heroism, adventure, sex, violence and family drama thrown in. It also features some good, strong female characters.

This fictional tale references real events and details well how life would have been 
during that tumultuous, nasty period. It makes you appreciate how lucky 
we have it, really.

6. The Island House by Posie Graeme Evans

Another novel with chapters that alternate between past and present, and featuring another woman embarking on another adventure. This woman inherits the only house on a remote Scottish island from her estranged archaeologist father. She packs up her life in Sydney, hops on a plane and boat, and takes up residence there, hoping to write her thesis in peace. Unfortunately, her dad had been digging on the island and disturbed some troubled, love lorn Viking-era spirits in the process, so she has to clean up his mess.

This is no great piece of literature, but it’s catchy and easy to read. There’s some historical detail, a little romance, mystery, self-discovery, beautiful scenery, and a nice story tying it together. These are key ingredients for any good book in my view. But what really stuck with me was the historical part of the story, the description of the harsh and uncertain life the people lived at the time, and the role of religion, faith and family in day-to-day life. It also must have been pretty exciting for the woman to reconnect with her father and his work, albeit posthumously, and to explore the island’s history, solve a mystery and rediscover her passion for archeology. And all while falling in love. What more can you ask for?

7. Burial Rites by Hannah Kent

This is an award-winning fictional retelling of factual events – the execution of a woman found guilty of murder in Iceland. It’s dark, and a bit twisted and gruesome in parts. Sometimes it’s a little irritating and slow, and sometimes you want it to slow down to try to delay or stop the execution (especially as Hannah implies the woman is innocent). It took me a few chapters to get into the book, but this woman’s story, her life and death, keeps popping into my mind.

I watched a documentary on this novel and Hannah Kent. Her description of researching and writing this story was haunting. It was like she was possessed by the main character, guided by her spirit. I’ve also been to Iceland, and through Hannah’s writing, I could see the stark, icy landscape and glaciers, the cottages spotted around the mountains. I could smell the earth, animals and musty rooms, and feel the icy winds, rain and fire. I could also feel the woman’s fear, longing, frustration, isolation, resignation, and love for her man and the family who took her in at the end. How do you forget something like that?

Want more?

An honourable mention goes to these authors. 

·       Tim Winton. Excluding his most recent work (Eyrie), you can’t really go wrong with Tim. I don’t know if it was Scission or A minimum of two (both collections of short stories) that hooked me, but I discovered him when I was about 15. I love his early work the most. I still think about the woman lying on the grass, trying to tan away the silvery stretch marks from her pregnancy, and the man taking his toddler son for a wee and the ammonia smell of it.

·       Tim Richards. I’ve probably read Duckness (a collection of short stories) three times (and I don’t usually read a book more than once). It was quirky and easy to read. Other than that, I’m not sure why I liked it so much, but I really did. His other fiction books are also pretty good.