Manna Matters: Investing in Homes and People

Our financial planner is interested in chooks, gardens, and pizza; he’s a Christian and a solid, dependable member of his church. A couple of years ago, my husband and I met with him to talk about backyard fruit trees, home-grown eggs and how to extract our superannuation from the stock market. We had serious qualms about how the market operates and how our money was being invested. Therefore, we wanted to set up a self-managed super fund...

To read more, click here.

And don't forget to check out the rest of the December 2014 issue of Manna Matters, with articles on the real estate market, household covenants and establishing a health retreat for Yolngu women.

The gorgeous illustration is by Shelley Knoll-Miller.

Notes on a Table

 

A friend sent me this piece today, which I wrote way back in 2000 when I was living in a group house - well before kids had entered the picture. I had forgotten about it, but, reading through, it seems nothing much has changed. So I've blown off the dust and present it here, a message from the archives.

***

Our house has the happy combination of a large dining room opening off the kitchen and a pleasant dining room table.

The dining room is the brain of the household. It contains the telephone, the household diary, the newspapers, and the message pad. Most conversations take place in the dining room, and most decisions are made within the walls.

But the wooden table is our household's heart. Like all good hearts, it has been scratched, scorched and scarred by careless users, but is still large and serviceable. It stands in the centre of the dining room. As one housemate moves around the kitchen, another sits at the table and reads or puzzles or doodles. Conversations float between the rooms.

The table is the setting for glorious Saturday breakfasts. Housemates and guests come together to feast. We load the table with croissants and rolls, fruit and cereal, butter and jam. Sections of the newspaper litter the floor. By coffee time we have solved the general knowledge crossword and we can start to unravel the cryptic. Conversations fly as we catch up and gossip and tell stories. Our household is sanctified by our Saturday morning breakfasts.

We have held countless dinners around it. Candles light the room, red wine flows, conversation bounds along. One of us jumps up to consult a dictionary; another wanders to the kitchen and, still talking, brews coffee or reaches into the oven for a pudding.

I have a Scrabble friend who lives in Hobart. When he is in town we play fierce matches. The table stands placidly through the squalls.

Flowers adorn it; papers litter it; magazines clutter it. A cat sleeps under it and is outraged when unsuspecting visitors inadvertently kick her.

In the late afternoon the sun slants across its surface. We drink endless cups of tea and chat about cats and community, and we place our hands where the wood glows with warmth. Our heads propped on our hands, we lament over lost loves. We tell ridiculous stories and laughter bubbles up from deep within. The table is steeped in these moments, and every meal taken at it, every game played on it, every conversation held over it is infused with traces of this joy.

I have lived in houses with eating areas far from the kitchen; houses where the dining rooms are dark and poky; and a house with a fiendish table whose legs tripped the unwary. Never again. I have been converted. My church is a well-used kitchen, and a large and serviceable table.

Originally published in Patmos, 2003.

A seal's bark

We've had vomit, lice, pus and snot - and now croup. Our five year old was making strange sounds in the middle of the night. Her breath was coming in sharp yanking gasps, and she woke to hoot and cough, loud and hoarse. After soothing her, I ran to the baby books and flipped through the pages. 'Maybe it's croup. Does she sound like a barking seal?' I asked my partner. But he doesn't know what a seal's bark sounds like either. And neither of us are selkies, so we worried and fretted until we could see a doctor the next day. She told us the cough did indeed sound like a seal's bark. It was croup indeed.

The day after that, we drove to Adelaide. On the way, our daughter hacked and barked in the back of the car. And so, of course, by the time we got to Adelaide the other two were infected. We spent our week's holiday up most nights cuddling and crooning, stroking and soothing. The worst night, the baby woke every forty five minutes. And our three year old and the baby wheezed and whistled all the way home.

It could have been unbearable. It was pretty bad. But we went away with three other adults who fooled around with the kids while we had restorative naps.*

It made me realise yet again just how much hard work the nuclear family is. Had we been home, we would have been up all night, then staggered through the days in a haze of exhaustion. But in a village, or away with our family and friends, other people play with the kids and ease the load. Indeed, we often have people come and stay with us, and time and again I find everything is easier with more people in the house. Fractious kids are calm with others; I get more things done because the kids don't rely on me for everything; and I even get to have an adult conversation from time to time.

It makes me wonder whether wealth can be a curse as well as a blessing. Our wealth means we live apart and soldier on, hiding our need for companionship, for a hand, for a presence in the household. With less wealth we'd be forced to share our houses, and our lives. There'd be more people on hand to diagnose a seal's bark, or allow an exhausted parent a nap. And there'd be more people around to be delighted by a toddler's drawing, a baby's smile.

Such an arrangement would certainly mean losing some privacy, but surely the trade off would be lives dramatically enriched by the experiences, the viewpoints, the stories, and the gifts of others. Not to mention lightened by more hands doing a bit of the housework.

*Also restorative, we loaded up on bratwurst and weisswurst, apple strudel and cherry streusel cake, riesling and beer - sing hey! for German heritage.