Searching for Small

Growing up in social-justice-y type circles, I thought that one day, I should save the world. Anything less would fall short of the mark. The only puzzle was who, or what, to focus on. After all, there are thousands of issues which need urgent attention: indigenous health, war games, Iraq, mandatory detention, water usage, expanding cities... the list is endless. But which was I to work for? Which would be my Big Cause?

These situations are desperately important, but none of them felt close to my heart. I volunteered with this organisation and that, and wrote lots of letters, and longed for a different world. But I never relaxed into any cause. Instead, I had kids.

The polar ice caps are melting, and overpopulation looms. Perhaps we shouldn't have had them. But for the most part I've delighted in them, positively wallowed in the experience. I love to watch them grow. And they've been the catalyst for my own growing up, my blossoming. I never published an essay until I had a baby; I never even thought to try. But with the shattered self, the re-building, and the newfound confidence that a baby engenders, I found myself attempting different things, asking more of myself and of life.

And also less. For at one level, I still feel niggles of doubt. Is raising kids really so important? Are small actions each week enough? Or should we all be leading great movements a la Martin Luther King Jr or Gandhi? I have often heard Buechner's suggestion that our call, or vocation, lies at the intersection of our greatest joy and the world's deepest need. But most of us struggle to name our greatest joy, let alone align it with the world's needs. And the world's needs are so big, so desperate, that it is impossible to see how we might have an impact. No one of us will be able to effect drastic change, but rather than think small, we give up.

Yet we are mortal. We are all of us little people, frail people. How else should we think, but small?

Surely, just as our lives are small but good, so might our deeds be small but good. Whether it's a moment's hospitality or graciousness, or something more intentional, perhaps there are little spaces where our happiness overlaps with the needs of others.

Let me tell you a story. Over the last few years, in reading to my own children, I have realised that reading children's stories gives me enormous pleasure. After a long time, it occurred to me that children other than my own might like having stories read with them. I wondered about school reading, but my daughter's class has so many parent volunteers, at least one of whom is working on her PhD, that I had no real interest in offering to help. I wondered about reading at other places, but nothing really worked out. I even thought about reading at another school, where most of the students are refugees. But I didn't know how to approach it, or who to ask. I sat on the idea, like a chicken with an egg, and waited.

One day, a friend forwarded me an email from this school. They were seeking new books for the kids, because most of the students had no books in their homes. I wept for these kids who had so little, and the egg began to crack. Then I contacted the coordinator, and told her about my idea. She was delighted, and so now I go in to listen to kids reading. The egg has hatched.

For an hour or so each week, I lie on the carpet at the back of a classroom and get quizzed on Harry Potter by boys with gappy teeth, and share naughty smiles with shy girls over the antics of the father Berenstein bear. We struggle to spell out long words, and talk about meaning, irony, irregular verbs and whatever else crops up - in very simple language, of course. Meanwhile my baby empties the classroom rubbish bin, eats pencil shavings, and is adored by 20 little kids.

It's small, very small, and so much fun that I can't believe it's useful. I get to listen to children's stories, and make jokes, and laugh. The kids get one on one attention with an odd lady in stripy socks, and a baby to play peekaboo with. My love of stories overlaps with the kids' need for someone to listen. It's not big. It won't make shockwaves or change the world. I'm not the only volunteer there; I'm not necessary. But if I can be just one link in a chain of people who welcome a young boy into the world of books, if it makes school just that little bit easier for a traumatised girl, then it is more than enough. I don't even need to know if it has these hoped-for effects; given the joy of the weekly encounter, the sheer fun of it, it must be good.

I figure that, all things considered, this is what I am called to do - on Friday mornings, at least. It's not much. But it meshes my love for books with a child's need for a reading partner. And it is particular, local, small.

I hope that in doing this one small thing, and seeing where it takes me, then I too might grow. And if, as they say, one thing leads to another, I reckon a thousand small things might lead to a life transformed. And who knows where a few lives transformed might lead? Perhaps... but that's another story.

Watching the shadows

Does everyone feel so short of time these days? I find myself lurching from one task to the next: washing, dishes, nappies, floors, school run, paperwork, quick cuddle and dinner time. In between there somewhere I set up activities and help put them away, hang up paintings to dry, tidy plaits, brush everyone's teeth, help kids with buckles and buttons, wipe snotty noses, wipe down the bench, buy our groceries, put away everything the baby's pulled out of a cupboard... Recently, friends were over for a visit. I'd made scones and cuppas and we were eating and chatting while I cleaned the kitchen, put away dishes, folded socks. 'Just sit down,' someone said. And I looked at them, only half laughing, saying 'Sit down?! I only sit down for breakfast, lunch and tea!'. And kept at my tasks as we talked.

I don't mind being busy most of the time. I enjoy a bit of bustle. But I don't seem to be able to rest even when I should. I have a few hours today, and am having an internal battle over how to spend the time. Write, read, go to the gym, weed the garden, go out for coffee. If I weed the garden, I can't go to the gym. If I read, I feel I should be doing something more productive. If, God forbid, I went to a cafe, I'd feel like I'd wasted my time off, even although I need a little downtime. Especially now, especially today - it's the first day of my period, and I'm wrecked. I should go lie on my bed and watch the shadows of the wattle tree dance across the wall. I tricked myself into keeping away from the gym by having a shower this morning (I have eczema, and can't have two showers in a day, ergo can't go to the gym where I'll end up stinking to high heaven). But I don't seem to be able to stop myself from Doing.

Because there is so much to do, a world full of interesting things I want to learn about, investigate, experience, explore. But when's the last time I went for a stroll along the creek? Sat down with a sketchbook? Watched the clouds?

I tell myself again and again that everyone has the same amount of time: 24 hours in a day, 7 days in a week. This is what it is to be human, to live on Earth. It must be enough time for me, because it's enough time for everyone, and it's all we're ever going to get anyway. But how do I decide how to spend this hour, or that? When is the housework paramount, when is reading aloud more important? When should I write, or read, or draw? Garden? Stay fit? Sit still for a moment??? How do I find ways to rest that are renewing, re-creating, restorative?

Like all decisions, the parameters change daily. I'm forever weighing up this choice or that, or feeling guilty about a moment's idleness, or apologising for a task enjoyed, as if somehow my enjoyment means the task is not valuable. I drive my partner mad with my struggle to learn to kick back and do nothing. Protestant roots go deep. They should and can be nourishing, but at times they have a stranglehold that drives out life and suffocates. I don't want to look back on my life and see nothing but a whirlwind; I want to recall a life dappled with moments of calm, moments of delight. Moments observable only when there is a little breathing room.

Which brings me back to now, and the internal battle raging. Reading back, it is clear what I should do. It is time to go and lie on my bed, and watch the shadows dance.

Just call me Aunty

At the playground yesterday, a little boy pointed at me, saying 'Eye-a, eye-a'. I nodded and smiled and said, 'Yes! That's my eye! and here are my sunglasses too!' We did this several times until his father, grinning, told me that the boy was actually saying 'Aunty'. In their culture, and their language, all older women are aunty.

I've heard of this before. Friends of mine who lived in Papua New Guinea speak of the way a crying baby is passed around, even down the line in a crowded airport. Nobody holds a screaming kid for long; you take a turn, and then hand them on. Everyone is woven into the web of care.

But hearing is not the same as experiencing, and yesterday I was thunderstruck. This little boy, who had never met me before, was claiming me in relationship. Claiming me, and making claims on me. For if a little kid calls me 'aunty', then I am going to make damn sure that he doesn't fall off the monkey bars.

Time and again, my white middle class neighbours, mothers pushing prams and looking just like me, start and hurry by when I greet them in the street. Ditto at the playground. After all, what would mothers pushing prams have in common?! It took a year to get past the deep reserve of most of the kinder mums; at least at school the daily drop off means the barriers are breaking down a little more quickly.

I get so tired of it. So tired that at times I can't be bothered making the effort to say hi, only to be rebuffed again. I wonder about the future of a culture where we all pretend we don't need one another, and that our lives don't intersect. How much easier our lives would be if the three families who lived on our street opened their doors to one another, had kids move back and forth between the houses, even shared occasional meals. How much easier if parents at school accept that our lives will overlap for the next decade, so why not at least exchange names? Instead, so many blink like startled rabbits when I greet them, and quickly step away.

In this cultural context, the little boy's greeting was even more special. His word bound me to him, for the moment, and I felt deeply honoured. And I felt responsible. I will help him down the slide, as his father pushes my daughter on the swing. If he runs toward the road, I'll give chase. If he wants to chat, I'll make the time to do so.

I can only hope and pray that, as he grows up here, he retains this sense that we belong to one another. And may I be open enough to learn from him and others like him, as he offers us a vision of a world in which our lives are interlinked, and we depend on, and are enriched by, each other.

Love letters

 

I changed the linen. Wanton leaves had insinuated themselves into the clean sheets. They fell out onto the beds, and tickled my hands as I collected them.

The scent of violets wafts through the air, seducing me into the garden.

Buds are forming on the almond tree. On this cold gray day, one burst into flower.

A cheeky pink salvia peeps around the house. She winks and smiles as I walk down the side.

I was pinned to a path, tantalised. Breathing heavily, I turned my head, looked down: daphne.

What are these but love letters? Written by the earth, mailed by the wind, seized from the air by me and opened. Ravishing, sensual, I hold them close to my heart. My day is pierced with delight.

Humiliations galore

Crawled out of bed at 6.30am. Pulled on my dressing gown, felt for my ugg boots, headed to breakfast. Except that, as I staggered out of the dark bedroom, I skidded on a turd.

Yes. Some drowsy child pooed in their night nappy, forgot, and took their nappy off. They rehitched their pajamas, and the turd, not completely adhered to their bottom, slid down their pajama trousers and onto the floor in my doorway, where said child had stood deciding if anyone was up yet. Unnoticed, it lay there until I, last one out of bed, found it.

Nothing like scrubbing poo off an ugg boot at 6.33 in the morning. Or cleaning the bedroom floor at 6.37. Or running a shower for a child at 6.41. Or scrubbing their pajama pants out at 6.47.

Sometimes, I get a little up myself. I think of myself as intelligent, composed, dignified, adult. I feel like I'm managing the family fairly well. Daily life is a wholesome mix of craft activities, healthy and nutritious meals, clean clothes, playing in the garden, and almost no tv. I'm doing okay, I think. I'm getting good at this. Ain't I fine!

And then I step in a turd.

And of course it changes nothing. It's just life, everything else is going along quite swimmingly, and we know how to manage bodily discharges round here. And yet it also changes everything. I'm no longer dignified. I ain't fine. I am literally hopping mad as I instantly flip from withdrawn sleepy adult to person jolted awake by the shocking realisation that here, in this house, this lovely airy and above all CLEAN house, some other human has deposited a turd on the floor. And I've skidded on it. And it's on my shoe.

Someone once told me it was good to be humiliated at least once a day to stay humble. These days, I'm feeling very humble. My shoulder is perpetually smeared by baby snot; my self-righteous five year old knows all the rules and just rebuked a tattooed man on a train for standing in the doorway; my three year old still requires urgent toilet stops in strange places, including at a tree in the service road off Queens Parade on Sunday evening. I'm taking it all in my stride - even this morning, all was calm bar the initial shouting.

But there are times when I could use a little less humiliation, a little more building up. Perhaps someone saying, Good job! Here's a pay rise! We're going to promote you! except there is no pay rise, no promotion for this job. No holidays, no sick leave, no super. The best you get is a small satisfaction when someone remembers to say 'please'. Or, better, a spontaneous cuddle on the floor of the hallway, or a special drawing to stick on the fridge. It's just that some mornings it feels like the poo outweighs the cuddles.

It's not all bad, of course. The cuddles are lovely. And as my partner pointed out, at least I was wearing my ugg boots today. I'm often barefoot in the morning.

The new normal

I have this idea of 'normal'. I think of the kitchen bench as clean and bare; the hall bench, the same. In fact, I think of the whole house as clean, tidy, put away.

Yesterday was the Monday Project.* As I swept under the kitchen table for the third time (three kids plus small visitors drop a mountain of crusts - and we have a mouse), I thought of myself as getting it back to rights. I put away loads of washing off the clothes horses plural so my back room no longer looked like a Chinese laundry. In the bathroom, I cleaned off the grunge and wiped down the benches to get it back to its 'normal' state of pristine cleanliness. I picked up the 30 books that the baby had pulled off one bookcase, and put away dozens of other small objects scattered around the house. I scrubbed the toilet and mopped the floors and cleaned off the benches. Everything looked great, for an hour.

Then the baby had a snack. She dropped great blobs of hommos and smeared kiwifruit absolutely everywhere. After reading on the trampoline, the older kids dumped a cushion, a rug, a book, a hanky, a toy cat, two pairs of grubby socks and a pair of shoes on the clean dining table. Dusk fell. I brought in the damp nappies and a sheet from the clothesline, retrieved one clotheshorse, and re-established the laundry inside. As we sat down to eat, we ignored the washing, and the maelstrom of food preparation on the kitchen bench: vegetable ends, pasta packets, cheese rinds and damp circles where pot lids had rested. The kids brushed their teeth, leaving soft lumps of toothpaste and water all over the sink. Someone dripped a little pee on the toilet floor in their urgency. Someone else forgot to flush.

And at some point I had a minor revelation: THIS is normal. This mess, and these drops of wee, and this hard lump of unidentifiable foodstuff adhering to the table leg. These lines of laundry in our eating place, these chopped up vegetable ends, these dirty dishes - this is it. Any ideas I have of a clean, pristine, perhaps fully adult house, are not normal. They are a momentary graciousness, a Monday Project, but nothing more. Sure, I have to cook and clean and wash every day, but any expectation that the house will feel consistently clean as three kids and small visitors roar through the house, tumbling books and toys from their shelves, eating with clumsy fingers and no sense of mess, is idiotic. It's not just naive: it misses the whole point.

For a neat clean house probably doesn't have children in it. It won't breathe and laugh and yell. The chaos is the sign of life, of hope, of reckless joy that young children bring. The snips of paper littering the floor, the drips of paint, the sticky patches of glue; the small envelopes with 'To my family' lovingly written in wobbly capitals; the daisies and geraniums and random leaves carefully picked and arranged in an old glass jar; the crusts carefully hidden under the rim of a plate... these are all signs of the creativity, thoughtfulness and intelligence my children bring to the household. And I value these gifts, above all.

So it's time to get with the new normal. Stop being annoyed at the smears of peanut butter, the blotches of purple paint. See them for what they are: three young children exploring the world, learning to feed themselves, starting to express themselves. Developing children learning fine motor skills, and when to use the toilet, and did I remember to flush? Healthy children eating juicy drippy fruit. Strong children digging in the garden and getting their hands and clothes and shoes all dirty.

One day, they'll all move out and the house might feel neat for a week. And then I'll yearn for these days, when the house feels warm and full and generous, and I'll find myself inviting some young friends over. I'll feed them juicy kiwifruit, and dig with them in the sandpit, and give them dripping paintbrushes to swirl around. We'll cook something sticky, empty out all the blocks onto the floor, and have a grand old time. The house will get messy, and we'll all relax. And by then, of course, if anyone drips wee on the floor, it will probably be me.

*I mostly clean the house on Mondays.

Apple cake and chocolate cake

As she was having her hair brushed this morning, my daughter sighed and said, Sometimes I wish I'd never been born.

Casually I asked her, What makes you say that?

Oh, she said, having to walk to school... having to wait for birthdays... Sigh.

But if you'd never been born, you'd never get to eat chocolate cake, I said.

Or apple cake! she replied, It's delicious! I never thought of that!

And she perked right up.

I wish every case of ennui was so simple to fix.

For years, I moped around. Never relaxed in what I was doing, never sure of what I had chosen, I ended up doing little and choosing less - and second-guessing even those. I didn't enjoy much, and felt guilty about just about everything else. Guilty for not achieving, guilty for hating work, guilty for having fun when others in the world struggle and starve. And I was bored, bored with my city, my life, my self.

Things change. I risked marriage. I risked having kids. I left my boring job, and stayed home. Now no-one in the world would find my life exciting. I spend it doing the small tasks that keep a family of five running, interspersed with dribs and drabs of writing here and there. Life is an interplay of washing and words, heavy on the washing. Yet somehow, in the smallness of my doing, I am finding an expansiveness of being. An expansiveness that is no longer demolished when a five year old plays around with words and feelings, a sturdiness that knows what makes life good.

After all, these days, I'm delighted that I was born. I, too, love apple cake and chocolate cake, curling up with a book, playing hide and seek with my kids, and hanging out with my husband. I have a garden to grow things, opportunities for reflection, friends that are true. Who wouldn't want to be alive? I wonder. Who wouldn't sing aloud with joy as they ride through the streets at night?