The Wife and the Writer's Life

Five hundred years ago today, Martin Luther is supposed to have nailed his 95 theses to the door of the Wittenburg Castle Church, an act which helped catalyse the Reformation. Thinking about Martin and his wife, Kate, I wrote the following piece for Zadok Perspectives No. 134 during a very busy summer!

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So I got an email asking if I could whip up a column on Martin Luther or maybe his wife Kate sometime in the next week, and I’d love to. I’d love to tell you about the time we went to Lutherstadt-Wittenburg and toured the church and their home. I’d love to tell you about how Martin spent the first three hours of every day in his study wrestling with God and praying before he got down to work—but the washing machine is trilling to say that the next load is ready to be hung on the line, a kid has just come into the study needing her mum, and I don’t have the time.

For I am Kate: the household manager. The Luther household was large, overflowing with children and visitors and servants and paying guests. And Kate made sure that the bread was baked and the meals were cooked and the beds were made and the children were taught and the vegetables were harvested and the beer was brewed. I’d love to tell you more about her, but it’s summer holidays, I live near the ocean, and I’ve had a constant stream of guests. In the last four weeks I’ve cooked over 300 dinners, and made breakfasts and lunches too. I’ve washed countless dishes and sheets and towels, swept and mopped the floors, talked to the plumber and other tradies, and paid the bills, even as I’ve spent time with visiting family and friends. But unlike Kate, I don’t have servants: no cook, no laundress, no maid, no farmhand, no gardener. Instead, I have my husband and me, and what I can wheedle, bully and cajole out of the kids. Yet my husband works in Melbourne and is away three days a week; the kids sometimes refuse their chores: much of the work is done by me.

Because it’s summer, I’ve also spent hours with the kids at the beach. And because I am not just a household manager, but also the sole pastor of a new congregation in a smallish city, I keep bumping into parishioners and others who access me in my role, and so, while standing around in my bathing suit, I’ve had conversations about grace and judgement and calling and forgiveness, and Jesus’ teaching on possessions. And then after I’ve listened and maybe spoken a word of hope or comfort or truth, they say to me, “Are you having a nice holiday?” and it’s true I’m in my bathers but I wonder what on earth they think I’m doing as I take what I hear, pray, read the Word, and prepare the next sermon that will shake them out of their complacency, or make them weep with gratitude and relief. For I’m also Martin: called to wrestle with God and preach and write, and proclaim God’s hospitality in word and deed. Unlike him, however, I don’t have a wife or three hours of solitude every day. Instead, I pray on foot as I slip out alone to the shops and plan the next round of meals. I’d tell you more about it, only I don’t have the time.

The Luthers paved the way for churches like ours, which keep an open table and have visitors every week; people who ask “What is prayer?” and “Who is Jesus?” and “Why do you do this weird ritual meal anyway?” even as they eat the bread and drink the wine and proclaim the mystery of our faith. They come, I think, because I am both Martin and Kate: the professional and the home maker: the writer and the cook. They read the sermons and eat the dinners because they are hungry: hungry for a people to eat with, hungry for a people to belong to, hungry for a shared narrative that is bigger and more generous than any other way of life. And this hunger is so great, and the eating is so central, that I’d love to find where Martin said, “If the good Lord sees fit to provide a nice, fat pike and a dry Rhine Riesling, then I see fit to eat and drink,” only it’s getting on to five and there are guests in the house. It’s time to turn on the oven, open a bottle of wine, put out crackers and dips, and cook dinner, so that this evening the people I love—the man I married, the children I birthed, the friends and parishioners and acquaintances I listen to, pray for, and talk, laugh and weep with—may, through the hospitality we provide in the name of Christ, come to the table and be fed.

Jesus promised that, when we follow him, we will find life in abundance; and life is certainly abundant in this wonderful, overflowing, crazy season of summer. In a couple of weeks, the visitors will go home, the kids will be back at school, my husband will be in Melbourne, and the house will be quiet. Then, I will sit in my study in solitude and silence, and then, I will find time to write.

In which I discover that a lounge room is more important than I thought

Above: My new, streamlined study

In the middle of last year we tried an experiment. We got rid of the lounge room and set up a study in there, instead. It was good for a while, at least for me. I found it easier to work at home, but we missed having a room where people could stay; we missed watching movies together as a family. Then one day my nine-year-old and I were in an op shop looking for a dress when she spied a big brown modular couch, ran over, flopped on it, and ordered me to buy it.

I don’t usually take interior design instructions from a nine-year-old. But when I flopped on the couch, I too was sold. We bought it, it was delivered the same day, and the desk is now in the shed. And I am again without study.

Mostly, it’s been okay. It hadn't realised how much we like to watch movies together; and as my daughters get older, this will only become more important. I love cuddling up to my girls as we laugh our heads off at Inspector Clouseau, or sigh at Elizabeth Bennett and all her pretty sisters. And I had underestimated how much I like having friends come and stay, something they could not do while the room was a study, but can now it is a lounge room again.

As for my work, I’ve been working in public libraries, or at the kitchen table, or, when the kids are home and the libraries are closed, in a nursing chair in a corner of my bedroom, laptop balanced on my knees. Some days I feel like a pushover, sacrificing my needs to that of my family; other days, I graciously accept that, at this stage, the needs of the family and the demands of hospitality are more important, and I am lucky to have libraries, quiet kitchens and nursing chairs to work in. The current arrangement forces me to be streamlined, and that is a blessing to this messy person; all the same, it is frustrating not having anywhere to leave things out. Everything must be packed away before the next meal or when the library closes, then pulled out again at the next opportunity.

So it's a mixed decision. There are times when I fantasise about houses with studies, or extra rooms. Yet we used to live in one of those houses; but other values impelled us to move here, instead. And it’s not that our current house is too small. It has enough rooms. But the big lounge is at the front of the house, where nobody much hangs out; while the small reading room is just off the kitchen, and is everyone’s favourite place. The small room would make the better study, but the family will not forfeit it, even though it doesn’t fit a couch; the big room really is too big for a study, and contains the piano and the telly. If only I could swap the location of the small room and the big room, so that the big room opened off the kitchen and the small room was up the front - then everyone would be happy!

My husband suggests building a studio in the garden where I can write and think. But my kids fight up in the tree house; the little boys next door constantly wail for their mum; and the boys on the other side kick a soccer ball until midnight several nights a week. It’s noisy out there; building is expensive; and I’m not sure it’s a good option. More realistic is to accept that important values led us to this situation, and then do what so many parents do: wait a decade until the kids move out, and take over a bedroom.

Or maybe just move house.

Goodbye, lounge room! Hello, study!

I have a job which calls for a lot of reading and writing. I don’t have an office; I read and write at home. And when I’m not working, I study, which is also all about reading and writing. And where do I do this reading and writing? Well, until very recently, like so many writers, I worked at the kitchen table.

And so every morning I’d clear up the breakfast dishes and dump them in the sink. I’d wipe the butter smears off the table, and push the ever-growing pile of craft to one end, or perhaps add it to the teetering heap on the spare chair. If the crumbs under the table were too bad, I’d get out the broom and sweep, and if the dishes were left from last night, I’d probably do the dishes, too.

Once the space was bearable, I’d fetch my stuff: laptop from a drawer in the little room off the kitchen; papers from the filing cabinet in the same room; books from the lounge room at the other end of the house. I’d set up and start. Five minutes later, my elbow would find a patch of sticky where someone spilled the jam, which I’d missed while wiping the table down. I’d get up, rinse the cloth, wipe the table once more, and dab at my elbow. Feeling exasperated, I’d make a cup of tea, then sit down again. It’s a miracle I ever started work!

At three, I’d pack everything up. Some days, everything would be put away, and I’d pick up the kids from school. Other days, I’d shove what I needed into my backpack and head to the local library, then return in time to cook dinner. Some evenings, after dinner, I’d go through the whole rigmarole of clearing the dinner dishes and wiping down the table, and setting up again, in order to read and write some more; then putting everything away ready for breakfast.

A few weeks ago, though, we had a minor revolution. A friend is setting up her own place for the first time. She texted and asked where we bought our couch. She said that she’s always loved it and had promised herself that, when the time came, she’d buy the same.

Hmm, I thought. We bought it fifteen years ago, pre-children. Being idiotic DINKS we chose an elegant cream linen couch stuffed with feathers. This beautiful couch is mind-blowingly comfortable. It also shows every speck of dirt and requires punching and fluffing after every sit to reintroduce air into the cushions. It has driven me crazy through eleven and a half years of children; at times I became one of those madwomen who tells her kids not to sit on the couch, and never sat on it herself. This couch has been nothing but a burden to this family: yet another job in a household where the work never ends.

I checked with my husband, then “Take it!” I texted back. “It’s huge and grubby and high maintenance: but if you want it, please take it!” Childless woman that she is, she said she’d love it, and set a date for collection.

I looked at low maintenance couches. Nothing grabbed me. Then I thought more about the lounge room and realised that we don’t actually use it. It’s not just the couch. We don’t watch TV; we rarely watch movies; we don’t read in there. The kids like to read up in the tree house, or on their beds, or flopped on a threadbare couch on the front porch where they can see friends and neighbours go by. My husband reads in the small room off the kitchen; it is lined with novels, and furnished with two wing-backed chairs. I read standing up. And I began to realise that, for all the people who come to our house each week, I can’t remember ever sitting with friends in the lounge room. We’re just not a lounge room family.

As I was thinking this, someone who had a big old desk of ours called. They no longer needed it: should they sell it, or did we want it back? Hmmm, I thought. Maybe we don’t need a lounge room at all. But I do need a study. And the desk was available for collection on the same day that the couch was going out the door.

The way things fell into the place, it was obvious. Even to pause and ponder feels a little silly: first world wondering gone mad. I need a study; we don’t need a lounge; the furniture is practically arranging itself. What’s the problem? And yet it feels slightly daring: Australians have lounge rooms. Everyone I know has a couch and a telly. Does not having them make us too different?

I began to realise that I’ve never thought much about the lounge room; I’ve just assumed we should have one. But this doesn’t take into account who we actually are, and what we actually need. It’s taken several years of crazy-making, and one friend taking the couch and another offering the desk, to realise that things could be different. It makes me wonder how else we live that is not about who we actually are, but is instead just a reflection of our middle class assumptions, shaped by advertising and glossy magazines and other people’s houses.

So we got rid of the lounge room. We now have a study. And today, I didn’t do the great pile of dishes in the kitchen: I couldn’t see them. Instead, I worked, and then wrote this. The desk runs into the middle of the room, with a view to the garden. Books form a comforting wall behind me, and on my right is a battered chair. Once it was the breastfeeding and story chair, but since we moved to this house a couple of years ago, it has been crowding a daughter’s bedroom. Now it is back in the common space. As I write, my oldest daughter arrives home. She wanders in and asks how my day was, then curls up in the chair and begins to read companionably. And I begin to think that this tiny countercultural act – no couch! no lounge room! – might just be a success.

The gift of not striving

It’s my birthday, and has it been a busy year! My third child is finally at school. I am working part time and studying part time and running a household and doing all the things that people my age do. But today, being my birthday, it is time to take stock and reflect.

Yesterday, I met with my professional supervisor. ‘What are you going to give yourself for your birthday?’ she asked. ‘Think about a gift you can give, from deep in yourself to yourself, and tell me about it next time.’

This morning I woke up and knew what it would be: permission to stop striving. There’s nothing wrong with working hard, but there’s sometimes wrong with endless striving. I get up in the morning, organise three kids out the door and ride them to school. Then I turn around and ride home. I work and study for five or six hours, stopping only to eat and pee, then hop back on the bike and pick the kids up from school. We cycle home, I feed them, then I bring the washing in, tidy the back table, organise piano practice, listen to readers, cook dinner, and do all the things every parent does every night of the week. My partner comes home and asks me how my day was, and I say, ‘I feel like I haven’t done anything.’ He asks me what I have actually done, and I say things like, ‘Well, I did a first draft of a book review for a journal, and wrote up the minutes of a meeting and made a heap of phone calls and met with my supervisor and sorted three loads of washing and cooked dinner and actually, there was a bit there after all, wasn’t there?’. He looks at me and smiles, yes.

Because I work in a church, I always work on Sunday evenings; and because I’m often preaching, I’ll write for a few hours many Saturdays, too. Because the kids are at school all week, I feel like I can’t ‘waste’ that time, and so I also work Monday to Friday. Because Easter is a big work week, with services on Thursday, Friday and Saturday night and a gathering on Sunday morning, and because my husband had to work over the school holidays, I didn’t get a break these Easter holidays from either my work or the kids. And so in fact I have worked for some hours at least of very many days in a row; and also been busy with children.

All things considered, I’m hardly twiddling my thumbs. Yet despite this activity, I often feel like I’m not doing enough. There are so many ‘shoulds’ and ‘oughts’ that I find it hard to do the things that aren’t at the top of the list – like write a blog post, for example.

But today is my birthday, and I have given myself permission to stop striving. So I took the kids to school and went to the canteen. I usually work there for an hour on Tuesdays, but today, because I was not striving, I stayed longer. I sat on the deck with other parents and chatted over coffee about trees and gardens. Then I headed into the kitchen, where I made spinach and cheese pastries, and learned how to roll pastry like an empanada. I talked with my friend who runs the canteen: about parenting and housework, meditation and the meaning of life. She gave me a new cookbook, written by a friend of hers. In a quiet moment, we flicked through it and I was so inspired that I went home via the shops to buy the ingredients for a warming soup.

Because I wasn’t striving, I called a friend and had a birthday chat. Then, feeling decadent, I ate my birthday chocolate as an entrée to my vegetable lunch. I thought of ten jobs I should do, but I stood at the window and gazed at the pear tree, instead. The tree is turning from green to red, and the top is crowned in blazing leaves. I remembered a post I wrote years ago, about another pear tree, and dug it out and read it. And then, because I wasn’t striving, I decided to write this.

Happy birthday.

And to all you gardeners out there, yes, the photograph is of a crab apple leaf; the red leaves on the pear tree are too high for a good photo just yet! And this book is my most excellent birthday present - thanks Kris!

Work, Study, Housework, Homemaking: Some definitions

 

In my last post, I wrote about work-life balance. I've spent my whole adult life wondering about the nature of work; yet in that post I used the word without definition or clarification. Now I'd like to unpack it.

The day I wrote that post, I used the word to mean 'activity which is not directly related to managing children or the household'; that's what I always mean when I say 'work'. My husband works: he goes out of the house and does stuff which is not related to spending time with children, cleaning the house, washing clothes, or buying, preparing and serving food. Certainly the money he earns contributes mightily to the upkeep of the household, but when he is 'at work', he is not engaged in a hands-on way.

When I say that I 'work', I mean that I am studying or writing. I don't differentiate, when I speak, between all the aspects of 'studying' and 'writing', such as reading, mining bibliographies, meeting with supervisors or other students, attending seminars, collecting library books, sighing over crappy drafts, or gazing out the window wondering what the hell I'm trying to do. Nobody needs to know precisely what I do in those hours, just as nobody outside accounts needs to know when my husband meets with a client, drafts a document, ducks out for sushi, or gazes out the window wondering what the hell he's trying to do, too. Like him, I just say 'work'. It's easier that way.

So for me, 'work' is industrious activity outside the orbit of the household. Because I study, it's not financially remunerative; maybe one day it will be.

Why do these words matter? Quite simply, because language is powerful. I have found that if I say 'it's my study time', someone will always suggest meeting for coffee or doing an errand; and when my study times are measured in three hour blocks, this is disastrous. On the other hand, when I say 'it's my work day', nobody asks anything of me. We take 'work' much more seriously than 'study', even if the person using the word 'work' really, secretly, means 'study'.

It's magic! And it's crazy. Meanwhile, an old friend of mine recently worked out how much time she has spent breastfeeding her very young baby; it was many more hours than full time employment, and didn't take into account the time she has spent changing nappies, washing, or caring for her two-year-old. Yet her activities don't fall into our economic or political models of work, despite being physically and emotionally demanding, very time consuming, and of enormous benefit to society. Why do so few of us describe caring for young children as 'work'?

I cannot count the times I wanted to punch someone when they asked me, the mother of three pre-schoolers, when I was going back to work. If, as regularly happened, they went on to say 'it's such a privilege to be able to stay home', I'd have to sit on my fist. Caring for three young children always felt like work enough for me, especially as I often also cared for an extra child or two. If, however, I had been employed as a childcare worker – and put my own kids in paid care to do it – everyone would have given me a pat on the back for re-entering 'the workforce'.

Many mothers I know privately describe their paid work as 'time off'. When they're 'at work' they can concentrate with no interruption; they can grab a coffee and have a few minutes' peaceful contemplation; they can use their minds and training and see the fruits of their labour; they earn money and status because they are 'employed'; and they can pee alone. Once they collect the kids, they're feel like they're on a hamster wheel of taxiing, cooking dinner, listening to readers, washing dishes, bathing kids, tucking them into bed, putting on a load of washing, sweeping the floor, hanging the washing out, and preparing lunches for the next day.

I used to think these friends of mine were being funny when they described their jobs as 'time off', but now I have more time for 'work', that is, study and writing, I see how right they are. It is so affirming to do things which use a bigger skill set; I am beginning to feel like a fully-fledged adult. Study and writing and meetings and seminars do feel like time off (not to mention that blissfully empty time, the commute); even so, I jealously protect the time with the powerful word, 'work', to describe it all.

So what are the activities I rarely describe as work? Unlike my old friend, I'm no longer breastfeeding or changing nappies, thank goodness, but there's still the cooking (don't run in the kitchen, I'm using the big knife), cleaning (I only mopped yesterday, just look at this floor!), laundry (that's two outfits for the day young lady I don't care if it's dirty you're wearing it again tomorrow), washing up (how many cups did you use today???), taking children to and from kinder (where's your lunchbox?) and school (where's your helmet?) and piano lessons (didn't you practice???), braiding hair (I asked you to brush it), working in the school canteen (no you can't have a cupcake just because I'm here), reading with my kids (use a bookmark, not my shopping list/your shoe/a used tissue for god's sake!) and school kids, organising playdates (no you can't watch YouTube when you have a friend over), telling my kids to sit up straight and chew their food properly and put your knees down at once!, shopping for food and shoes and birthday presents, organising church suppers, pruning the roses, telling my kids to use a tissue and put it in the bin!, changing the sheets, overseeing tooth brushing, scrubbing muddy handprints off the walls, combing out nits (sit still!), calling and waiting for tradies, wiping down the benches, taking kids to the doctor and dentist and hairdresser, planting, weeding and watering veggies, reminding kids to put your damn clothes in the wash/away/does this floor look like a laundry basket?, managing multiple food allergies and intolerances (is that really worth eczema and stomach cramps?), feeding the school chooks and guinea pigs (don't squeeze the poor creature!), doing the family paperwork (when did your teacher give you this form?), fixing things (exactly HOW did you break it?), paying bills (do you think we're made of money?), and a thousand other activities.

Some want to describe all this as 'work' – and there are times when I do, too – yet I am largely reluctant to use that word. It's an uphill battle to reframe language. Most people use 'work' to mean 'job' or 'employment'; it's not automatic to use it for household duties. In any case, all these activities are about our primary relationships, and I don't want to reduce the enormous richness and complexity of running a household and caring for children to a set of economic activities, which is what 'work' usually suggests; family life is so much greater than that. Finally, paid work is not 'time off' or a pleasure for many people; it's the job they do so they can afford a roof over their heads and kids under the roof. To describe maintaining that home and caring for children as 'work' when those activities are experienced as a great privilege and a pleasure is, to many people, bizarre.

So I feel the need for another word. 'Housework' doesn't begin to cut it; to me, the word evokes a low heeled woman wearing a frilly apron and carrying a feather duster, and it completely overlooks all the relational aspects of caring for children and maintaining other household relationships. 'Housekeeping', too, doesn't quite fit because, like 'housework', the word is focussed on the physical structure of the house and doesn't provide for the people within it. If you employ a housekeeper, you also need a nanny; housekeepers don't care for children or anyone else.

Another possibility is the word 'homemaking'. It's a word that largely connotes women's work because of a social history in which women have spent the last however long as the primary workers in the home and carers of the people in it; in fact, some dictionaries go so far as to define it as a role some women (not men) adopt. And yet, on reflection, homemaking is not a verb which is intrinsically gendered: every man, woman and child engages in homemaking in some form or another.

Just think of the child who carefully places a pretty snail shell on a shelf; the man who takes out the garbage; the woman who sweeps the floor; the kids who build a cubby; and the baby who by her cries draws the household near. They are all homemakers, building the place where they live and shaping the relationships they have with the other people there.

So the home includes the place, and the objects and people within it; the members of the household co-create and maintain the place they call home through physical labour and relational work; and I can call this activity 'homemaking'.

I've found a word I can work with. I will continue to call any industrious activity outside the house 'work'; and all the things I do in and for the household I will call 'homemaking', instead.

Re the picture: Query: Are the dishes work? Answer: Not for me. They're homemaking. And I must admit, I rather enjoy splashing round in the sink! But as for scrubbing the loo... blech.

How I came to own the philosophy of work-life balance naked, wet, at seven o’clock in the morning

 

I was in the shower, steam everywhere, when someone walked into the bathroom. I twitched open the shower curtains to peek and there was my four-year-old, sitting on the loo and swinging her legs. 'Hi Mum,' she said, 'we're going to the zoo. Are you coming?'

It was school holidays. My husband had taken two days off work to be with the kids and free me to study; apparently he was taking them to the zoo.

As the water pounded my back, I shook my head and said, 'No thanks, today I'll stay home and do some work.'

'Because it's more important,' she said wisely, then gave me a kind smile.

Such a dagger to the guts. I grew up in a house where my mother's work was more important than everything else, and didn't we know it. As children, we were given to understand that we were highly treasured and highly privileged; as such, other less privileged people needed her time more than we did, and we were never to complain. I often dreamed of having a stay-at-home mum, the sort of comfortable person who enjoyed being with me and who baked cookies. And yet, when I spent time with other people's stay-at-home mums, I often didn't feel very comfortable; and it wasn't actually something I wanted from the woman who was my mother. If she'd stayed home, she would have gone berserk, and driven me crazy in the process. She drove me crazy enough as it was.

But I resented the primacy of work in her life; everyone else knew her better than me. And my sister and I spent so much of our childhoods just waiting. We'd hang round church for hours, waiting for her to be done, and not allowed to leave without her; we'd hang around the house waiting for her sudden gallop through the hall, clutching a pile of papers and yelling at us to hurry up. We'd sit on the back step after school, hot, thirsty, and busting to pee, waiting for her to come home from wherever she was and let us in; for years, we couldn't have a key because she worried about 'latchkey kids'. (As to whether being a 'doorstep kid' is worse, I'm not sure; I certainly was happier when I could let myself and get a glass of water.)

I can see that the stressors on her were enormous. She was a ground breaker in her field and worked far more than full time, yet she was also never able to relinquish the idea of the 'proper mother'. Despite her work hours, she also tried to iron the sheets and make pizza from scratch and pretend that work had no impact on her children. I can see this and I feel sad for her; but I'm still not at peace with her choices. I have no problem with parents working, but they have to make good arrangements for their kids. So when my four-year-old asserted, very comfortably, that my work was more important than wandering around the zoo with her, I felt sick.

Was it true? I wondered. Did I really think my work was more important?

Well, when it came down to it, probably yes. She hardly needed both parents walking her through the butterfly house, and her dad would do a good job. I had spent the last three days fooling around with her, her sisters, and their assorted friends, and now I needed to do something different. On the other hand, working wasn't more important than spending time with her, per se; it was just more important right now. Such old scripts and philosophical knots one has to untangle in the shower while a four-year-old is staring fixedly at one's breasts!

All this reflection happened in a second or two. Then I said that work wasn't more important; but that what was important was to have balance. 'I need to play with you and read you stories a bit, and I need to work a bit, and I need to cook, wash and clean the house a bit. I've done lots of playing and reading and cooking and cleaning and washing this week, so now it's time for some working. And I can do this while you're at the zoo.'

'Okay,' she said, as her eyes travelled curiously up and down. It's too cold for regular nakedness in my house and I realised that it had been a while since she'd seen me undressed. She hopped off the loo, flushed, washed her hands, took one last good look, then wandered out of the bathroom.

So that was how I came to own the philosophy of work-life balance naked, wet, at seven o'clock in the morning. Meanwhile, with any luck, my four-year-old learned two things. One, that balance is important. And two, that some adult women have pubic hair.

Thanks to her dad for the photo of the hand and the butterfly!

Do you have any talents, mum?

 

My six-year-old and I were walking along the breakwater: thousands of great bluestones tumbled against the path to hold back the sea. Of course, my daughter would not walk on the boring old path; instead, she bounded across the irregularly shaped sharp-edged boulders. Ten feet below her, the sea surged and sent up occasional jets of spray. Boulders rocked under her feet as she quickly judged which way to jump next, and I tried not to think about what would happen if she slipped.

As Little Miss Mountain Goat leapt along, she maintained a stream of chatter. She asked me why I wasn’t any good at jumping across the rocks, and I admitted that I’ve always had a very poor sense of balance. I didn’t mention my second reason, that too many people had looked at me strangely or, worse, kindly, when we’d walked along a long wall together earlier that week, and that I didn’t feel like exposing myself anymore!

‘I’m very talented at climbing and leaping,’ she said, ‘and also the monkey bars. Those are my main talents.’ ‘You do have very good balance,’ I said. She mentioned some other things she is good at, and wondered whether there was a difference between a talent and a skill. She noted what her sisters are good at and then, just as a couple of older mums walked past with their teenagers, she yelled, ‘Do you have any talents, mum?’

The women paused in their conversation, stopped walking, and turned. ‘I’d like to hear the answer to that!’ said one. So much for being unobtrusive, I thought, as I yelled ‘Reading, writing, and cooking!’ to my daughter, the women, and the sea. The women laughed and kept on walking, and I thought to myself, I’m also good keeping up with the washing, finding children’s gems in op shops, and performing boring tasks unobtrusively year in year out.

Our conversation moved on, but I continued to mull over the exchange. I was fascinated that my daughter needed to ask me what I was good at – but then, she’s only six and has only recently begun articulating the differences between us. Perhaps she’s wondering whether all mums have the same set of skills and abilities, or whether different mums are good at different things; perhaps she simply remembered that I am a separate person to her and was seeking more information on who that person is. Either way, her question was one of many steps as she develops a strong and independent self.

I also wondered what else I’m good at. I was relieved that I could immediately think of a few things but it has taken me a long while to get to this stage. And I wondered how long it will take me to develop a strong and independent sense of self, too. I often look at my kids in amazement; all three are so sure of who they are. I don’t remember being like that. For as long as I can remember I have been full of doubts and confusion, not really knowing what I am good at and who I want to be.

But I’m nearly forty, and I have great faith in that age. All the women I really admire – dynamic, powerful, and grounded – are older than me, and I’m looking forward to being older too. I hope that through learning from my kids, doing more outside the house, and working through the old emotions, I might develop a stronger sense of self and become dynamic, powerful and grounded too. And I’ll keep walking with my kids, and watching them bound along; sometimes, I’ll even get up on the wall and follow them.

A sanity tax leads to life in abundance

 

What does it mean when a woman who has been reasonably happy to be home with young children no longer wants to be home with young children, and yet still has a four-year-old at home? How can she be a good parent to the little one? How can she retain her sanity?

I don't know why I post it as a theoretical question. This is personal: these are questions I've been asking myself for six months or more. This year I get more time than I have had for nearly a decade to work, study, and do my thing, but it's still not enough. My youngest is at home a couple of days a week, and by the middle of a day with her, I am ready to scream; instead, I ignore her while she plays, and often say no when she asks me to join in. 'Mummy doesn't play,' I say. 'Mummy reads to you or cooks with you, but mummy doesn't play.' I don't want to sit on the floor; I don't want to pretend; I don't want to converse with a four-year-old for more than half a day. Quite simply, I've had enough.

How I did it for nearly ten years, I don't know. How did I sip imaginary tea and set out bead patterns and chat about the neighbour's cat? And why can't I do it anymore? I've grown out of her life stage more than a year too soon.

I realise it's the first time I've had a four-year-old without a younger sibling around to absorb her attention. Meanwhile, many of our friends have moved on: parents have picked up more hours at work; children are in school or childcare; and even if there were lots of people left to play with, I've moved on too. I want to do stuff, not arrange coffee mornings just so my kid is occupied.

I felt like I should feel guilty that I managed to be there for her two older sisters when I don't want to be there for her. But I'm not guilty. I've stayed home with her as much as I can, but now it costs too much. And if I'm honest, our three daughters have had three different parenting experiences as I moved through my own life stages; this is really nothing more than the next stage.

Realising this led me to think about our parenting model. What do I want my children to learn? What version of womanhood do I want to model for my daughters? Is a woman is someone who subjugates her needs to theirs way beyond the point of her own happiness and health? Or is a woman a person who is engaged in the work that she loves, whether it's in the home or in the wider world? I realised I'd like my girls to see that I'm doing things that stimulate me and give me life. I used to love being at home; now I don't. I love spending some time with her, but not all day. When I clarified that, I realised it was certainly time for a change. Staying home with her more than half a day each day no longer felt like an option.

So I tried to work out how best to care for her. I explained to her that this year she'd be at kinder for three mornings, and then I asked her what she wanted to do on the other days. Childcare, perhaps? Um, no. Adamantly not. She hates childcare by any name. We dipped her toe in the waters of childcare once or twice and she is still furious about it. Kinder good, childcare bad: that's her motto.

'If not childcare, then what?' I asked. Very firmly she said, 'Stay home with you.' 'Does it need to be me?' I said. 'An adult who loves me,' she said.

Good answer – but how frustrating. Secretly, I wanted her to go to childcare like every other kid, and I wanted to be able to tell myself and the world that it's what she wants to do: to spend time with a group of kids running riot. Instead, I realised that I had three options: (1) stay home with her; (2) force her into childcare and betray her trust in me that I will arrange what is best for her; or (3) come up with another solution which respects her desires but also keeps me from going right out of my mind.

I have tried and tried the first option. For more than six months I have sought ways to enjoy being home with her. She is a delightful child, independent, bright, funny, and imaginative. As I watch her games, help her cook muffins, and listen to her made up jokes I don't know why I don't want to be with her. But I'm past that stage.

Option one was wiped out. Given how articulate my daughter is about her need to be home, I couldn't face enrolling her in childcare; that eliminated option two. Option three? I wondered how she could be at home with someone who loves her, and how that someone could not be me. Her daddy is already home with her more time than he can really spare from work; he couldn't pick up any more. We have no grannies. Her auntie works. Our friends all work or have kids of their own.

Finally, after weeks of pondering, I thought of her uncle. He's between jobs. He adores her. She adores him. He's gentle and kind and loves to cook. Perhaps, I thought, he could be with her a morning each week. They could read stories and go to the library, and I could do my thing. The arrangement could last as long as they both enjoyed it, or until he found better work.

I asked him. He grinned from ear to ear and said yes. I asked my daughter. She grinned from ear to ear and said yes. This boded well.

So on Friday morning I went out. I had a coffee and prepared a workshop. I bumped into new neighbours and had an adult chat. I ran a few errands. And I came home full of energy. I found my brother-in-law finishing the dishes, and my daughter snipping paper into little strips and singing. There was a warm chocolate cake on the bench, waiting for me. As I had a slice, he wiped out the oven and I nearly passed out. The cake was incredible – and I've never seen a man wipe out an oven before. He's worth his weight in gold.

One of my friends pays her sister to nanny the kids a few hours each week. She calls it her sanity tax. I'm paying my brother-in-law and I was thinking of it as a sanity tax, too. For us, it might mean less meals out – big deal! Because if sanity comes in the shape of a workshop drafted and a neighbour well met, a chocolate cake and a clean oven, a man with a spring in his step and cash in his pocket, and a singing child: this is so much more than my sanity. This is abundant life for all of us, and is worth whatever we can afford.

The first morning of the first day of the rest of my life

At least, that's what it feels like. Today, for the first time this year, my four-year-old went back to kinder. Today, for the first time ever, my six- and nine-year-olds went to before care at school. Which means that today, everyone else left the house at 7.25 in the morning. My husband took the big girls to school, dropped the little one at kinder, and headed off to work – and I didn't have to pick anyone up until 1.30!

This will be our pattern several days a week, which means that this week, for the first time in nine and a half years, I will have many, many hours to study and write.

Nobody will ask me for a story, or a game, or a visit to the park. It will just be me, sitting alone with a book and a pen, quietly reading for hours. After nine and a half years of nappies and washing and dishes and little toys, and the questions and requests and repetitions of little children, the morning was shocking in its emptiness.

Time luxuriated before me, lolling on my kitchen table and teasing me from my books. Time seductively whispered that I could stretch and yawn and scratch myself. This week, my day won't be broken into the six minute units of lawyers and parents of young children. I can plan in blocks of an hour or even two. Time awaits me.

There was housework, but I didn't do it. There were dishes in the sink, but they were left to sit. The time was for reading and writing, and nothing else. If one can describe an activity that gives one great pleasure as work then, after a decade home with kids, this morning I went back to work.

Usually, when I'm not looking after kids, I run like a bull at a gate. I rush around and get things done and write something quick; I don't want to waste the opportunity. But by 9.30 this morning, I'd read a scholarly article and a government report and taken notes. My eyes and brain were getting fuzzy. I realised that if I'm going to spend the next five years researching and writing a thesis, I might just have to pace myself. And I also realised that tomorrow and the next day I get to do this all over again. My time is not perhaps quite so precious as it has been up until now; for the first time in a decade, I really do have enough.

I thought about how to rest for a while. Should I take five minutes and make myself a hot drink? Should I take ten and go for a stroll around the block? I was feeling creaky, and time kept murmuring that it would wait for me. So with a great sense of decadence, I performed a yoga routine. I bent and stretched and gloated for an hour, because finally I have time. The sheer luxury of so much overwhelms me.

The next book is waiting to be read, but I stole a few more minutes to write this post. As I made notes in my empty house and thought about today, I began to wonder about tomorrow. As I pondered, a tiny voice whispered,

After all these years with young children in the house, is it possible you will feel a bit lonely?

Perish the thought!

Why I no longer draw with my children

 

So many children are easily discouraged about their creative abilities. Even my own.

I first realised this while drawing. I love to draw, but for all my resolutions, I rarely make the time to do it. Every now and then, however, when my kids were drawing and I had a few minutes, I would sit down at the end of the table, pull over a piece of paper, and begin to sketch. Within minutes they would stop, every time; and it took me years to notice.

Why are you stopping? I'd ask.

Because I can’t draw, they'd say.

And so I'd say useless things like, We all draw differently just as we all have different singing voices; what you’re doing is fantastic; and if you’re looking at mine you need to remember I’ve had 30 years’ more practice. But it was too late; they’d have shoved the paper away by then.

Worse still, they might then ask me to draw an elephant or whatever, because they ‘couldn’t’. Sometimes I did, but then I felt like I’d failed them; sometimes I didn’t, and they made me feel so mean. Yet I couldn't see how me doing their drawing helped them to develop a style or build confidence, so I finally solved the problem by refusing to draw with them at all.

 

I ran into a similar issue at school. I read and write with school kids in a one on one program. During first semester of this year, I thought we could play with journaling. Each week I read out a story, we asked wondering questions, then we sat side by side writing a response to the questions raised by the story. And week after week, despite the constraints of shaping my handwriting to Victorian standard cursive, I’d still fall into my own little world and get lost in a story; and the kid would look over at some stage and sigh. Yes? I’d say, Would you like to share what you’ve done?

Nah, the kid would say; and then sometimes they’d exclaim that they couldn’t write. No matter what I said, and no matter how much praise I lavished on them, if the kid looked at my page of neat handwriting, discouragement would set in. Yet I was so desperate to write with anyone, even a seven year old, that it took me a while to realise what was happening.

Finally, I began to wonder about how I related to people who were ‘better’ than me. I have a very competitive streak, held firmly in check, and so I have always found it difficult to make friends with people who are smarter / more qualified / better at everything. Because I know this about myself and have worked on it for years, most of my friends are indeed smarter / more qualified / better at everything and my life has been enormously enriched by this; but it has taken me a long time to get to this place.

Even now, I struggle to go out on a limb in front of anyone except a child. I can write, sketch, sing loudly and do a dance if there’s a child needing to be drawn out; but never, never for an adult. I wouldn’t want to draw in front of a ‘real’ artist or write in front of a ‘real’ writer, so how could I expect a child to?

So I began opting out at school just as I did at home. Because I hate the idea of sitting there idly or, worse, watching, while a kid dreams and writes awhile, I take in the cryptic crossword. Now we do the reading and wondering together, then the kid is cut loose to respond while I scratch my head and fill in a few clues. They glance over from time to time and see my pathetic scratchings, and the mistakes crossed out, and all the empty boxes, and grin to themselves, then stick their nose back into their own story. At the end of the session my puzzle is still only a quarter filled in while their story, about something in which they are the only expert, is an accomplished piece: something to be really proud of; and the only one left feeling like an idiot is, very happily, me.

PS - I came across this piece on *not* drawing for children; it clearly articulates that towards which I am fumbling.

Pictures show my oldest daughter's portrait of 'Sam' from Sam and the Tigers, a gorgeous Black reclamation of the story of Little Black Sambo by Julius Lester and Jerry Pinkney, drawn when she was three; and a spinning top, which she drew at 8 - the things she gets up to when I'm not looking!

A Room of One’s Own

All I need is a room of my own...

Or a desk at the library. To my left a student sleeps, head resting on folded arms. To my right is the hot pink Mills & Boon bookstand, with its racy covers and titles. My iPod's in and techno blasts, drowning out gossiping teenagers. As the librarian rolls past with the book trolley, the sprung floor bends and complains and my chair tilts: a hundred years ago, our library was a dance hall.

Or a table at a bar, James Blake on vinyl bringing me to tears. As I sit in the shadows, the barmaid tells a story and people start to laugh; the owner makes calls in the next booth; a delivery man rolls in a trolley full of crates; and women stride past, their boots crashing assertively on the old wooden floor.

Or an anonymous food court where a pot of peppermint tea buys a seat for hours. The surrounds are so ugly I have no option but to concentrate on the task at hand. Lower back aching, chair digging into my legs, I write three thousand words in a sitting.

Or halfway up the stairs, the sounds of a houseful of children ebbing and flowing below me. I sit in the illuminated square below the skylight and a gentle breeze curls its way upwards, softly brushing past me as I type.

Or the kitchen table, kid asleep in another room, a sticky smear of jam at my elbow, crumbs at my feet, a pile of dishes in the sink and me steadfastly ignoring them all as I grab an hour to write.

It may not be what Virginia Woolf had in mind; it may not be much; but it is, for now, enough.

Not quite drowning

 

At last, the heat has broken and a gale from the south has charged through the house, sweeping out the stale air before it. Now I sit, well rested after the first cool night in weeks, and wonder why I don't feel fresh, too. Instead, I feel stale and dried out, with nothing much to say.

But the sort of writing I do needs great swathes of silence; incompatible with a seven week school break and three girls screeching around the house. Next week, though, school begins again. My two older girls will go back; and the third will start kinder, which I can only think of as six hours each week of silence. We are also starting a child swap: in return for looking after a delightful four year old one day a fortnight, on alternate weeks my youngest will be at her house and I will have a whole day alone.

Since I had my first child eight and a half years ago, I've rarely had a full day to call my own. We chose not to use professional childcare, and our combined commitments mean that days to myself are very rare indeed. I've been happy enough with regular half days, but suddenly today, with a week to go, I'm hanging out to be alone for hours on end. I'm looking forward to a time when writing isn't at the expense of everything else. Having enough time to do more of other things – exercise, read, listen to the wind – feels spacious, luxurious, a great privilege; who knows what will unfold?

In the meantime, though, I wait, up to my ankles in paper snowflakes and French knitting and marbles and jigsaw puzzles and all the other things that have drifted to the floor; up to my waist in Charlie & Lola and The Muddleheaded Wombat and A Necklace of Raindrops and all the other books I am required to read aloud; up to my elbows in Cluedo and crazy eights and ship o' fools and ludo and all the games that require my participation; up to my ears in kids' music and play dates and the horrible sounds of squabbling sisters...

In a sea of young children I wait, not quite drowning, one arm raised to next week.

Poems for all the Lovely People

 

When she's not cooking or cleaning or reading aloud or writing or singing, what on earth does a woman at home with kids do with her time? (Yes, I get asked this question occasionally.) Well, one of the other things I do each week is sit in a classroom reading and writing with a bunch of terrific kids, most of whom have a refugee background. It's great fun, and I freely admit I probably get more out of it than the kids do. You can read about one instance of 'more' here.

And just as, a year or two ago, I wrote a set of poems incorporating names from the classroom, over the last month I have again written a set of poems which include the class list, and collated the poems into a little illustrated book. It is no great poetic work, just a heap of lovin' fun to make some fantastic kids belly laugh. The book was debuted in class over the last two weeks; and each kid has taken home a copy to keep and read over the holidays. You, I am sure, have enough books to keep you occupied over the holidays, but here's a couple of the poems for the child in you.

***

Faiza (pronounced fay-zah)

Faiza plays a
Game of catch.
Away rolls the ball
Into a patch
Of shadow where the light grows dull.
Faiza runs and finds her ball.
Faiza gaze a-
cross the green.
Here comes a man with a mowing machine!
Faiza runs off with the ball
And bounces it against a wall.
Marbles, four square,
Hopscotch, hey!
Faiza plays the
Days away.

***

Ziad

Ziad's name means 'more than enough',
But enough of what? Well, that's a bit tough.
Is it dozens of smiles? An abundance of brains?
Plenty of sunshine? Or showers of rain?
Does he have a herd of elephants
To carry him through the streets?
A great big pile of umbrellas and hats
To shade him from the heat?
Outside his window perhaps he sees
A fleet of shining cars
Or looking up above at night
A universe of stars.

Or could this 'more' be what he gives
As he fills our lives with joy?
Whatever it is, however he lives,
Ziad is our abundant boy!

***

Jibreel

How does it feel, Jibreel, to be
Climbing the branches of a tree,
Pushing through leaves way up high,
Arms reaching out to touch the sky?

How does it feel, Jibreel, to run
Round the oval in the sun
Through the grass or kicking a ball
And hearing it thud against the wall?

How does it feel, Jibreel, to rest
Down in the shade with one of your best
Friends in the world, chatting away?
How do you feel, Jibreel, today?

***

Why did I start reading with these kids? Click here to find out.

A Spider, A Gift

 

I never thought of myself as a wise woman until a spider came to live above my kitchen sink... I chat with her as we do our housework: me at the dishes, Arachne at her loom. As water splashes into the sink, I contemplate webs and weaving, fear and friendship, and whatever else her presence evokes.

***

You can read more of my reflection on a friendly spider in Barefoot Magazine's Summer 2011 issue. This is a bittersweet announcement since it is, very sadly, the last issue of Barefoot.

You can find Barefoot Magazine at all good newsagents, or order your copy here.

The Zoo in You

 

Years ago, I decided to pay attention to God’s feathered friends as one metaphor for God’s presence, and in doing so, I have discovered this: that the Holy Spirit is heard in the kookaburra, who laughs at our pretensions and wrestles with the snake;... she’s found in the white-faced heron on our neighbour’s roof; she’s recalled by little finches at my grandfather’s funeral. When I'm soulsick and sinking, she calls out my name; of Cornish ancestry, I hear her in the language of my heart, which leaps at the crying of the gulls.

***

Yep, another piece is being published, this time in The Zoo in You, a book exploring the animal imagery of faith. If you can cope with a bit of God in your reading, you should love this book. Each reflection is grouped with a prayer and a poem by Cameron Semmens, and is illustrated by Hamish McWilliam. My reflection can be found in Hope with a Cockatiel.

The Zoo in You is now available for pre-order for $19.95 plus postage here. Orders will be shipped from 2 December, and should arrive in good time for Christmas.

If the God stuff's not your thing, no matter – just wait 'til the next book!

Writing Avoidance Techniques, or What I thought about last Thursday

Did you know there is an entire Medical Romance series within the Mills & Boone cadre? I have stopped drinking for a few months, and since I feel like an idiot sitting for hours in my usual writing space – a bar – with only a mineral water to justify my presence, I have had to resort to the local library. And in our busy library full of chatty people, the quietest corner is tucked into the romance section.

I must admit that Doctor Delicious, a large print medical M&B romance, caught my eye. So did The French Doctor's Midwife Bride, an elliptical title that leaves me longing to know more. The Surgeon's Pregnancy Surprise was surprising, indeed, for who if not a doctor knows how babies are made – but then, I suppose we all forget things in the heat of the moment.

Up until now I have been fairly happy as a WOLGER*, and indeed the house is being painted and the plumber has just fixed our hot water service. Looking at these titles, however, makes me wonder if I am missing something.

Would I have more fun as The Sheik's Blackmailed Mistress or as The Sheik's Wayward Wife? Or would the desert sand irritate my buttocks? Perhaps being At the Greek Tycoon's Bidding might be more comfortable; a yacht with clean linen sounds nice.

I'm probably too leathery to pass as The Millionaire Tycoon's English Rose, but I might enjoy being Pleasured in the Billionaire's Bed or, more submissively, Bedded at the Billionaire's Convenience. Yet the latter title has an off-putting lack of alliteration; Bedded at the Billionaire's Behest would have worked better for me.

It's certainly a bit late to be The Desert King's Virgin Bride; to be honest, I'd have to say that I'm more The Lusty Lawyer's Lovely Lay type.

But wait! It seems I have lived a M&B romance. For on spinning the rack I see The Boss and His Secretary, nestled right next to Accepting the Boss's Proposal. And many years ago, I did.

Though come to think of it, I proposed to him. I'll have to write my own book. How does The Secretary's Saucy Suggestion sound?

*Wife of lawyer getting excited about renovations.

From Heavy Heart to a Sense of Hope

What follows is a reflection presented to the South Yarra Community Baptist Church on 3 July 2011. Not quite the usual post, but some of you may find it interesting. The text referred to is Matthew 11:25-30, which goes like this:

Jesus broke into prayer, saying: "Father, Lord of earth and sky, thank you for keeping the religious experts and the sophisticated intellectuals in the dark about these matters, while at the same time making them as plain as day to the average toddler. But of course, Father, such reckless generosity is typical of the way you like to do things!"

Then, turning to the crowd again, Jesus said: "My Father has put the whole show in my hands, and it all hangs on the strength of our relationship. No one really knows what makes the Son tick except the Father, and no one really knows what makes the Father tick except the Son. Anyone else can only know if the Son chooses to let them in on it. If you are worn out and overloaded, come to me, and I will let you put your feet up. Come and work for me, and take a leaf out of my book. I am gentle on people, and down-to-earth; and with me your whole being will be able to relax. The job I will give you is piece of cake. The load I will ask you to bear is a feather-weight."

(Australian paraphrase © Nathan Nettleton, laughingbird.net).

***

Tonight's gospel passage holds a somewhat hideous fascination for me. I've always been told that I'm pretty smart, and I've studied theology. Yet in the reading from Matthew, Jesus says that God has hidden many things from the intelligent and wise, and instead revealed them to children. It's a reminder that cleverness is not the be-all and end-all, and that God's wisdom may often look foolish to our minds – but of course, it makes me very nervous about preaching!

So rather than engage in a big theological exposition, unravelling the text using historical, socio-political, linguistic and liberation-theological tools, I will instead talk a bit about my own journey as a member of this church, and how I think it relates to this passage.

Here I should add that I see church participation as the primary expression of faith. I have been influenced by Elizabeth O'Connor, who argues that the first work of the Christian is to participate in the formation of the church; in fact, she describes it as the only task. "In it," she writes, "we can find ultimate meaning. We are not looking for that thing which may happen next week, next month, or next year. We believe ourselves to be engaged this very moment in that which is the hope of the world... because [Christ] is how we can learn to live in a new way." (Elizabeth O'Connor, The Only Task).

Yet like Jesus' words, O'Connor's claim too has a fairly awful fascination to me. I hate joining things, I hate being part of groups, and at some slightly pathetic level I have to admit that I think I'm a little too good to be linked with a bunch of strangers in a Christian community; it's not very cool, after all. I've been told too many times how fantastically clever and gifted I am, and there seems to be little use for that in the church. So there's a voice that tells me that I'm wasted here; I should be out doing amazing things with important people somewhere else, always somewhere else. In a coffee house in New York, at a conference in London: somewhere important, I could be doing something important and feeling good. At least, that's the myth.

Yet I also know that turning up to church here week after week, month after month, year after year, is the primary discipline that has helped me grow and mature, and which has enabled me to articulate what my gifts are. So what do I do with that?

Well, going back to tonight's text, after putting Miss Clever-pants back in her place, Jesus invites her to link up with him; and he says that his yoke is easy. Preachers often suggest this means we can pretty much put up our feet and rest – even our paraphrase has words to that effect – but I don't really buy that. The bullock driver doesn't harness up the animals only to have them sitting around the barn all day! What I hear is a call to work, but not the work that seems important to us and to the world. Instead, we are to engage in the work that Jesus wants us to do; and I've thought a great deal about what that is.

Since I've been a part of this congregation, I've slowly identified that I am a writer, by which I suppose I mean that I can weave words together with relative ease. One dominant myth in our society is that our profession forms our primary identity, and this can be especially true for a writer. When you read writer's manuals, they usually say, in effect, that the writing is more important than anything else; if you're a serious writer, life has to fit around the writing. This may mean not having children, or choosing to have just one. This may mean holing up in a garret and writing for hours every day. This may mean sacrificing a marriage or other significant relationships if they get in the way of the craft. And this may all be true if one is to write Great Works of Literature; I don't know because I haven't written any great works yet!

So our profession is usually understood to be the same thing as our vocation, perhaps especially for any sort of artist; and the two words are often used interchangeably, even by Christians. In my life, however, I find myself living a paradox. On the one hand, it is through living out the Christian life that I find myself becoming a writer; on the other, following God's call in its myriad aspects, which is the Christian vocation, seems to compromise my attempts to write.

This is because the work Jesus calls me to only sometimes looks like writing. Sure, I have a couple of blogs, and write for various publications; and sure, I try to infuse a sense of the holiness of the everyday into most things I write – and when I manage it, it feels like I am doing something good. And yet I am often called to do work that doesn't look like writing at all, work which, in fact, seems to detract from the writing.

I felt deeply called to have children, not one but three; and I have no doubt that it was the best thing I could have done. Yet trying to write with three children in the house is infuriating. Writing is a slow, contemplative, solitary endeavour, requiring a sharp and rested mind; children are messy, noisy beings who require frequent and immediate attention, often in the middle of the night. So solitude and rest, two things a writer needs, are rarely to be found in my house.

As well, I feel called to be part of church life. Belonging to any community involves commitment and work; here, I do the notice sheet and the kids' sheets. I don't mind the work, in fact I quite enjoy it, but any writer's manual would have hysterics at the precious hours of solitude I spend every week on those jobs.

I feel, too, that being part of a church is often hard work emotionally. Not only do I have to turn up when I'm in a foul mood or exhausted or just plain bored, but I have to work to resolve conflict and engage with all sorts of people. As you all know, it's difficult at times. Getting along with one another, learning to love one another, is hard. It is the work of long commitment: showing up, and biting one's tongue, and saying sorry – and at this church it often feels especially difficult. We live far away from each other, so we rarely bump into each other and have those spontaneous conversations that can be so life-giving; we are all different ages, so there is no big peer group that I can slot into and pretend that, with these cool people who affirm my lifestyle choices, I am forming church. Instead, I have to engage with everyone, not just the easy people; and I have to work on the relationships. This is not to say that the relationships aren't enjoyable – but they're certainly not always easy.

Most of these efforts – the conversations, the conflict resolution, the kids' activities, the notice sheet, the child raising, the laundry and the floors – don't look much like work in the eyes of the world. No one would call them my profession; and few understand how they can be part of my vocation. Yet they all arise out of invitations I have experienced at times of prayer. At my core, I have no doubt that they, along with the writing, constitute the work I am called to do; even so, this lack of cohesion or a dignified title can make me resentful.

That's when I need to hear the second part of Jesus' call. Not only am I called to do his work, but he says that his work will suit me, and the burden will be light. It is an invitation to joy – an invitation to find the work that leads to growth and maturity and delight in life.

There are times that I think I want a bit of acclaim as a writer; I dream of being a lonely artist making it in the big city. However, I am actually a very fragile person with all sorts of tendencies towards compulsive behaviour, depression, and self-hate. Loneliness and stress – which loom large in the highly stylized writer's life – are, for me, doors to a downward spiral, the sort of spiral which results not in Great Works of Literature, but in self loathing and the crumbling of any ability or desire to write, or indeed do much at all.

So what I need, that is, what suits me and has matured me and made me into someone with enough resilience and courage to begin to write, are the stability of a good marriage and loving children; the regular demands of family life; the steadiness of a church community; the practice of doing small jobs for others with faithfulness and humility; and the understanding that this life, too, is valuable. Staying true to these disciplines is part of my calling as I follow the way of Jesus Christ; and engaging in them has indeed eased my burden considerably.

Looking back at the disparate aspects of my vocation, I sense that they have had a great refining effect. The last decade has taught me all sorts of lessons about patience, humility, faithfulness, kindness, gentleness, hospitality and forgiveness. I have a great deal to learn, but I can also see that there's been a huge shift. I'm no longer the churned up and largely furious person I once was. Although those elements are still with me, I no longer feel dominated by them – and for this I am deeply grateful.

So in a nutshell, then, responding to the invitation of Jesus to take on his yoke does involve work. It may not be the sort of stuff we think of as work; and it may not lead to great respect or professional fulfilment or any of the other rewards we often think we should receive in return for our labour. In fact, there may be times when the work of Jesus feels absolutely tedious, like a bullock walking circles in a mill pit. But Jesus never promised we'd be ploughing fields with nice views, or that we'd see the fruit of our labour; perhaps our job is just to grind away. It doesn't matter.

What does matter is that this work, this acceptance of a yoke that, for me at least, means a quiet and largely invisible life built around personal relationships not professional acclaim, is slowly turning my heart of stone into one of flesh, the sort of flesh that can experience not only hurt and anger but also a wildly soaring joy. I used to experience life with a heavy heart, as if it were an enforced long march, or something to get through; now I find myself strolling along with a powerful sense of hope. Accepting Jesus' yoke and its various disciplines has led to my burden being lightened, indeed. And that, of course, is worth writing about.

The work of being me

This piece appeared in Zadok Perspectives No. 110 (Autumn 2011).

***

At the end of last year I was constantly sick and felt run down, even exhausted. Yet other friends were juggling kids and paid employment; and here was I, a stay at home mum, so wrecked I fell asleep at nine o'clock every night. I finally had a big cry with my husband. I told him I felt like a complete failure: unlike so many other mums, I didn't even work, and yet I was so tired my bones ached.

He looked at me bewildered. He pointed out that I did at least a day's volunteer work every week. On top of that, I juggled three blogs and wrote more than a hundred posts for them in a year; I published ten articles in newspapers or journals; I drafted another half dozen articles that had been rejected and were sitting in the back of the filing cabinet; I gave a lecture, wrote a paper and tutored a subject at uni; and I was raising three kids, two of them pre-school. Put like that, I guess I did a bit of work. Perhaps it was okay to be tired.

Even so, at some level I felt like it wasn't. After all, it wasn't 'real' work. I enjoy fooling around with words; I enjoy reading with refugee kids; I enjoy preparing resources for churches; I enjoy tutoring uni students; and for the most part, I even enjoy my own children! And I've always loved doing the laundry. But when I enjoy it all so much, it's hard to feel that doing these things is anything more than a hausfrau fooling around.

Yet it is work that needs to be done. Someone has to do the washing, or we won't have anything to wear; someone has to raise our kids. Someone has to read with refugees, teach students and engage the church. Someone has to tell stories about this crazy sad and wonderful world. In a small way, I have been invited to be that someone.

When I put these activities together, however, they're not neatly encapsulated in a role like 'doctor' or 'lawyer' or even 'writer' or 'housewife'. Instead, they reflect a whole life, sparkling with love and play and work all mixed up together. This whole life is not a job; instead, it's no more and no less than just being me, responding to the invitations set before me: a process I might identify as following God's call. So although the things I do are clearly tiring, it is difficult to name them as work.

Sadly, too, just being me doesn't pay the bills. And so the other reason that all this industry doesn't feel like much is that it was, for the most part, unpaid. I earned a little from tutoring, a little from published articles, a little from click throughs from my blogs to an online bookseller – all up, about half a mortgage payment. Hardly enough to break out the champers, or feed and clothe three kids.

Living without making a significant financial contribution to the household is an ongoing exercise in trust, and at times I feel like a freeloader. Sure, my husband and I negotiated this position; it makes perfect sense for him to be in paid employment, and for me to run the household. But every now and then, I panic. I want to earn my own money, show him my worth, and stop being dependent. In our society, the money we earn is a quantifiable achievement, and the thing that so often honours our ability, training and hard work. I feel like I am missing out.

I find myself browsing blogs on how to make my own blogs pay; or thinking about articles that might sell for cash. When I'm really down, I even contemplate being a secretary again.

– and then I wake up to myself. I'm not going to put tummy slimming ads on my food blog, or gaudy advertisements next to a post on grief. That's far more humiliating than being financially dependent on someone who respects me for who I am, not what I earn.

There's a lesson in that. My husband knows my worth and values what I do; my friends and community don't judge me for the lack of a weekly pay packet – so why judge myself? While my activities may sometimes feel pointless for their lack of coherence or direction, they also feel right. Could I ignore the money, and think about the blessings of living out this call instead?

When I stop for a moment and reflect, I soon realise how great they are. After all, how privileged I am to be able to share books with young refugees. How fortunate I am to be able to tell stories, and to have found a medium to share them. How honoured I am to be asked to guide students in their studies. How fun it is to dream up activities and watch the church kids run with them. How delightful it is to cook for my family and friends. And how lucky I am to love doing laundry, and to have a family that generates so much of it!

A Thursday ritual

My husband is in charge on Thursday afternoons. He comes home early from work; collects the kids from school, always remembering a snack; takes them to the park of their choice for a long play; then brings them home and cooks dinner. Later, he reads them stories and puts them to bed.

Because I can't keep my mouth shut, can't stop myself from taking over the kids and the cooking and the shouting if I'm at home, I agree to be banished from the house. I head to a local bar, buy a glass of wine, and settle down at 'my' table to read or write. Later, perhaps, I might meet a friend and grab a bite to eat; then it's off to choir to sing my heart out and sit round gossiping with a group of mums. It's a highlight of my week, the evening I look forward to from sometime early Wednesday. Sure, most weeks sparkle with small good things; but this ritual feeds my soul. And what is good for my soul is good for my kids; without it, I have a tendency to become tyrannical.

What intrigues me is how easily I will jeopardize, even cancel, it. Last week, there was no choir; instead, our choir director held a concert of her piano students, which include my daughter. Meanwhile, my husband had not been able to be home for dinner yet that week. Because there was no choir and my husband hadn't been home, I thought I should stick around; even so, my husband urged me to go out, then meet us at the concert. But I decided that would be selfish; that we needed to eat as a family; and that I should stay.

When my husband and the kids surged in the door from school, at least one person looked disappointed that I had crashed their only weeknight together. I began to worry about dinner and what we would eat even as my husband heated pasta water. One kid shouted, another shrieked, I yelled, and my husband looked at me. 'Maybe,' I said, 'maybe, I really should go out? Would you mind?'.

'Go!' he urged me, 'please go!' and gave me a big hug. So finally, an hour later than usual, I pulled on my boots, packed my bag, and toddled off, wittering and apologising all the way – and feeling so selfish. Extraordinary, really, given that I had done the whole kiddie food – story – bed routine three nights in a row, and would do it again on Friday; Fridays are always a late night for him.

I have internalized so many ideas of what makes a good mother; one of them is about being present. A good mother doesn't go out for no reason; and she certainly doesn't squander money on wine in bars and a meal out! And yet, is this really true? Surely after seven years I have learned by now that without this sort of activity I become lonely, bored, ground down and angry; going out gives me the fillip I need to enjoy my children and to want to be with them most of the time.

My life revolves around laundry and floors, playgrounds and dishes; my Thursday ritual gives me a bit of structure, a bit of adult input. I get to walk at my speed, chat with adults or sit quietly. It's the only meal I eat in complete dignity, with no need to discipline anyone, no complaints about the food, and nobody's crusts ending up on my plate. Even without choir, just two hours alone out of the house far from the jobs that perpetually nag me is profoundly life-giving.

I may not be able to claim it for myself every week, but I give thanks for a husband who is wiser than me, who can gently nudge me towards the front door. 'Go!' he urges, 'Go!'. Obedient wife that I am, I nod my head, pull on my shoes and pack my bag; and dutifully I walk right out that door.

Photograph shows my middle daughter 'flying' to Mousehole in Cornwall - it's how I feel when I leave the house on Thursdays!

Report Card: 36

When do I get to be entirely comfortable in my own skin? I've just turned 36, and I've been awkward my whole life. In many older women I see a confidence that I long for, and I've always hoped that by the time I'm forty I might, like these women, have grown into myself. But from where I'm standing now it feels a long way off, certainly further than four years.

Like so many women, I don't love my body. I don't hate it, and don't want another. Yet somehow I always feel the wrong size. If I were thinner, my clothes would fit better and I wouldn't have this muffin top peeking out my jeans; if I were fatter I'd be more beautifully rounded. My skinny friends are always stylish; my large friends just gorgeous; but somehow my thin bits are scrawny and my big bits are lumpy and I never, ever feel just right.

The only time I've loved my body was when I was pregnant. That's when I began to swim, my enormous balloon of a belly wafting below me as I meandered up and down the lap lanes. Once I had the babies I stopped swimming, however; I can't stand being seen in bathers. I love the feeling of being suspended in water, but every time I look at the swim bag I feel sick. I've tried sidestepping this with tank tops and big shorts, but I hate wearing them more than regular bathers; they just make me more obvious.

Yet the discomfort doesn't seem to have much to do with my body, per se. I can't imagine I'd feel different if I were glamorously thin with perfect olive skin. I would still hate being looked at, or feeling scrutinised by strangers. Really, the discomfort is about being noticed; and the physical side is only one aspect. At times this aversion has dominated how I've felt in public. I never used to sing, or laugh; I'd get highly anxious in shops or on public transport; I'd become flustered and stammer in coffee shops when the waiter came to take my order. I've only danced under the influence of exactly the right dose of alcohol, and usually not even then. Much of the time, I hate being observed; and I struggle with this.

I long to grow out of this discomfort, this desire to be invisible which has, at times, crippled me; I get so frustrated that I haven't managed it yet. But I'm beginning to realise it's a thing to keep working it, a gradually dawning state that will come with effort and patience, for when I look back over the years, I see change.

Although I never sang for many many years, now I sing every day. A few years back, having spent several years at a small church where singing was paramount, I realised it was time to get over my fear. I stayed at the church, joined a community singing group, and began singing to my kids. I've learned to listen, and to modulate my timing and tone; my singing voice has shifted from a whisper to a bray to something moderately tuneful. Not only that, but where once I stood stiff as a board, these days I find myself swaying, sufficiently lost in the act of singing to be able to move with the sound.

I used to get wildly flustered in shops, and at times I still get anxious. But gone are the days when I avoided them altogether; now I enjoy the hustle and bustle of the city streets. I used to get so panicky on public transport that I'd disembark early to avoid missing my stop; now, I stay seated til journey's end. For years I wore only black; but now I wear colour – lots of muted blues and greys, yes, but also pinks, reds and greens, impossible a decade ago. My black boots have been replaced by burgundy; my black Mary Janes by clogs sprinkled with flowers. Small things, perhaps, but indicators of change – though what slow change it is! At kindergarten, I smothered my pictures with thick black paint so no one would comment on their strangeness; they showed perspective and depth. At school, I found it easier to draw like everybody else, formulaic flowers and little girls in pink. Thirty years later, I am gradually unlearning the drawing, peeling back the paint, and depicting the world as I see it. I use words now instead of a brush, but it's the same game; and I'm finally doing it in public.

So at 36, looking back, I find things are progressing. Healing may be possible. It's taking a long time, quite literally decades, but I'm well on the way. No longer stuck in the desolate years of my teens, or that awful black hole of my early twenties, I feel like I've found good earth and am sinking down roots; I'm sending out new green shoots. And the more I unfurl in spirit, the more I unfold in public.

One day in my forties, perhaps I will blossom. I will put on a pretty dress without wincing; I will wear my bathers casually. I will write something long, and become one of those women I adore, big and bold and confidently present. When that day comes you will probably know; for not only will I be singing aloud, but you'll probably find me dancing.