Antares

The airconditioning is humming tonight, the first in a while that we've needed it to suck the humidity. It's cool enough, just wet and the Possum doesn't sleep well under water. I don't like shutting all the windows for it, I can't hear the night and the wind sulks and won't play but the stillness and the rumbling of the vents make me sleep like the dead.

I have been dreaming a lot lately. Big, colourful, nonsensical dreams. I dreamed of a platypus the other night. Snakes another. Freud would have fun with the snakes, but I'm not sure how he'd react to platypi. The internet is not helpful. One site suggested it represented shyness, depression and negativity while another made innuendo regarding playfulness "downunder". I don't feel shy. Or negative. Or depressed. So I don't know what to make of it, though I remember being both surprised and completely at ease when accosted by a platypus.

I feel, if anything, wistful right now. Thinking of sweet things that tease the edges of memory and make me smile. Little snippets of a life well lived and a vague sense of... something.

There had been, in the centre of my chest, for some 3 years a beautiful bright kite that danced in the wind with streamers behind it against a bright and beautiful blue sky. And after flying high and battling the gusts it would occasionally crash to the ground with a sickening thud, and I would survey the damage, sometimes dispassionately, sometimes heartbroken, before running with the string behind me until the kite flew again. Veering drunkenly sometimes, but still fluttering with its beautiful tail. Then the last few times it fell, pieces were torn from it that can't be patched back, and then a little while ago, I stopped trying to see it flying and instead wrapped it up carefully and placed it away in a cupboard in my chest, leaving the remnants as intact as possible, not wanting to see any more torn off.

For some time, after I placed it in storage, I would have a memory of the bright colours and I would get a burning pain, right in the middle of my chest and I would fight the desperate urge to push it into the sky again, to prove that it could still fly. And maybe it can, but I refuse to tear any further strips off while trying to create something that has passed, I like the memories better.

The sky is very close tonight, and thick, tactile. I think the night gets lonely sometimes in Winter and longs for the endless Summer days when the sounds and the scents and the voices echo through her. Summer is still partying, but it is winding up, slowly. The music is playing but there are fewer dancers on the floor and the cool grey of Winter dawn is creeping around her edges.

I long for cooler days. I love the yellow dawns that wake me with brightness and heat and getting out in the rich sultry air before anyone else wakes and the way the wet humid Earth smells as I cross it, but I want even more the sensation of cool air slapping me awake and the thin cool greyness that slides over bare limbs and strokes it alive. I love the silver of the Winter night and the pure white glow of the stars and the moon. I love my Antares, twinkling away with her ruby glow in the heart of the scorpion dangerous and beautiful.

On a night long ago, I remember being disorientated as I got off a bus near midnight and had to stumble home through darkened streets that passed a cemetery. Being an imaginative 16 year old the sounds of night terrified me and I wished more than ever to be safe at home, not stumbling over the streets of suburban Geneva. But through the clouds that covered the sky for most of the time I was there, the moon came out, and just above the horizon the familiar whip tail of the Scorpion was visible and I was not afraid any more.

Some decade later, climbing off a bus onto a busy side road of another city far from home, the frigid wind curled around my exposed wrists and neck and made me shiver in spite of myself. I felt lost, and discombobulated and not sure which direction I should head, struggling with my internal compass as I crossed the overpass over the steady traffic, avoiding the pool of urine against concrete. As I looked up the sky was clear and in spite of the light pollution that faded the night towards the margins like a streaky watercolour, I still found her in the sky, my red star, following my heart.

I don't need a platypus in a dream to tell me that I feel lost again and in need of guidance, and somehow it feels as if the Winter will provide me that. I feel some sort of hope in my chest and assurance that great things are in store for this year, if I am patient and work hard and am humble. I do not know if I will fly again so high as I used, or if my colours will be so bright, but there is something new in me now, a strength that I never before knew I possessed, and a determination. A thread of something shining, and never broken that keeps on looking forward. And I know, somehow, that that will be rewarded this year, and my star will lead me home.

31

In blackness I woke from the dream terrified, and stiffened as I felt your arms around me. Your strong hard arms that enfold me the way only you can. They tightened a little, gathering me back against the heat of your chest and you mumbled into my hair, your voice seeping through the follicles, slowing the pounding in my ears and I drifted back towards sleep. I felt the impression of your thighs on mine and the subtle grind of your hips as I relaxed into you, comforting but also male as the cool night air caressed my cheek and my eyelashes tickled your forearm as they fluttered closed.

I woke this morning and didn't see your eyes looking sleepily back at me from the pillow. It disoriented me a little, though stranger still it would have been to see you there. Tangled in white sheets and the thin film of sweat that heralds scorching days. I tried to get up but realised my head was swimming and nausea had clenched the middle in a vice. In my early fog of waking and the delirium of illness I wondered if you were in the kitchen and tripped out of bed, wearing my sheets as a toga to find you before remembering, hazily, that you would not be there. That no one would be there. That I was alone.

I curled up on my side and wept a little, giving myself to the fantasy for the first time in a long time, before the last hiccough was gone and I was spent. Still ill, still hot, but cleansed of the ghosts that visit me in the middle of the night, in dreams when I cannot defend myself.

I am 31 today. As I was yesterday, from 10:20 am. It is only a number. A prime number and yet it has filled me with none of the anticipation and excitement that 30 brought. The last prime was 29 and that year was hideous. The one before that at 23 not much better. I wonder if it just suits me to be melancholy, or if it's the temperature racing over my skin. My birthday was spent flying away from the ones I love to this loneliness here and it hurts more today than it has in a long time.

The dream of you just the icing on a cake that I never actually had, the burn of your skin on my skin unable to be scrubbed off in the shower, but lingering, trying to comfort as I pushed it away.

I read your book because of a tattoo

It has been a cold, wet start to winter and the rain seems unlikely to relent any time soon. We were at the beach this long, wet weekend, with the intention of dancing along the sand and collecting shells and spent much time indoors instead, watching movies on the couch and listening longingly to the roar of the stormy ocean outside. It was so wet that even I, the inveterate rainwalker could not head out through the dunes to splash in the waves.


It was a slightly crestfallen Jenn that woke this morning in the grey wetness, looking balefully at the clouds and wishing for the tiniest interlude, a quick steal onto the sand, as I packed up the detritus from the hotel room and the collected pens and sponsor waterbottles from my conference. The children were in surprisingly good humour, considering the resort pool that they had only seen glimpses of and the beach and playground equipment that eluded them as we set off this morning. Bellies full from the buffet breakfast (the highlight of their trip) we drove North West, into the shadow of the volcano to trip through some of the world's most beautiful country.

The bickering from the backseat ebbed and flowed with the raindrops as we ascended into the Border Ranges and into the forest, watching the ephemeral rain waterfalls off the escarpment that are only there when the rain is heavy. A brief hiatus in the bucketing rain left the leaves glossy and wet, with every breeze dislodging heavy drops that splodged over noses and tickled down collars as we pulled everyone out of the car and off to see a waterfall that had eaten through the rock and formed a Natural Bridge, the cave underneath home to thousands of glow worms, seen only by their glistening silken threads.

The spray off the waterfall mingled with the tangy rain drenched air and tasted sweet as it snuggled down in my chest. The girls racing along the paths, asking with teenaged exasperation why we were walking through the forest on a rainy day just to see TREES. When I asked the Possum, who was holding my hand, he smiled and told me the trees were singing. Whereupon I tumbled him up as he giggled, hugged him tightly until he squirmed and whispered that that was exactly it - I needed to hear the trees singing.

I am glad that at least one of my children has inherited my insatiable need to be out in the green, though to be fair to the other two ratbags, they enjoyed themselves as well, watching waterfalls and trying to catch glimpses of pademelons as they sprung between trees.

......................

It was the Possum's third birthday this weekend. Three. It makes my heart ache to think of a time when he was not part of our lives, when I did not wake with his feet warming on some part of my body while his body curls with his elbows tucked in neatly. I was afraid that as he grew older my need for another baby would resurface, but he is so much more than enough that every stage of his growing older is more lovely than the last. Being his mother and getting to hold him against my heart is such a massive privilege. I am a very lucky woman. We are all utterly besotted and he is thriving.

On Friday we took his birthday cake into daycare where he solemnly blew out all the candles and exulted in the joy that is quite unexplainable of having a birthday. More than just the attention and balloons, it was his joy in simply being alive in his new shoes that flash as he walks and help him leap puddles in a single bound. Of his skinny little hips in his new jeans and shirt that made him look older, wiser and ultimately more vulnerable than he ever seemed as a newborn. I had to restrain myself from holding him to me, just to absorb through my skin the radiance that lights him from the inside out, exploding through his cheeky grins.

I feel often that I should write more here, about what is happening in their lives, of their stories and their triumphs, but I also feel that many are not my stories to tell; to share with the world at large. Though as the guardian of something so wonderful it feels as though I want to bring that light to others too. Do I sound like every besotted mother, convinced of the loveliness of her own progeny? Of course, and it's how it should be, but I know there is something special about my boy - if only because, temporarily, he is mine.

......................

The title of this post comes from Vonnegut, who I read on the advice of strangers who commented and submitted to Contrariwise. I was reminded of it as I clicked on a blog I once read miserably, to push the blade deeper into my chest and hope that the fragile creation within it would finally die and stop hurting. And it didn't hurt at all tonight, and I didn't even finish because I was not interested in playing with knives any more. I read a little and all I could think was "So it goes". And while that felt empty and strange for a little while, I was pouring a bowl of cereal later for dinner when I broke into a huge grin and a laugh tumbled forward from my lips. Because the ridiculousness of finding a life philosophy from a tattoo that echoes in all of the secret places of your soul was so delicious that only a squirrel could understand. Or perhaps a tree.

So it goes.

Automne

The last time my fingers burned and my cheeks were bright and my hair bounced over a thick pashmina wrapped around my ears, I was in Paris and the stompy feet to keep them warm in the mornings and the shake of the shoulders before stepping under the shower and the cold tiles in the bathroom was a ritual that made me glad every day I was there. I thought of that tonight as I let my skin get cold, the frigid air brushing against my naked arms instead of covering up of how much I enjoy Autumn.

I bounced to work this morning in wonderful shoes and interesting tights, my favourite black dress and a trench coat I've learned to tie "just so". I felt sparkly, even though, for once, I was not wearing anything sparkly or even red. I was just bubbled up on the inside, happy and warm and red blooded.

I love leaving work as the sun is starting to set and the golden glow comes off the city as it reflects the mirrored buildings. Getting to my car when the sky is pink and streaky and the birds are chattering and noisy. I was excited to be alive every day that I was in France. There was so much potential just in the act of waking up in the mornings that lazing around in bed did not appeal. So much I could be doing or seeing or being. I miss being excited just by the call of the wind.

There's a life lesson in there, and an obvious one at that. One that gets swamped because of all the mundane and real life things that threaten to overtake in a mutinous coup at any time. But it was not the museums or the galleries or even the tower that I thought about most this morning as I shivered putting on my mascara. It was our little white apartment and walking through the streets. That first blast of fresh cold air as it burned my ears. Of holding Bingley's chilled hand until my furnace like ones warmed it up. Of bouncing while I walked.

I remember being on a boat in the middle of the Seine and closing my eyes under a bridge just so wishes could come true. Standing in line at Franprix with a bottle of 2E wine and a box of pasta and being so very much alive.

I stood under the shower tonight, unwilling to get out and be abused by the cold and thought about how much simpler life can be when you're on holiday and you only live for yourself. And some days those thoughts make me morose and want to chuck in this stupid career and the aeons of study and work and effort. Do something simple instead. Something that doesn't take but just provides. A normal job.

But I want as well, a life less ordinary. Where I can push myself to my mental limits and never say "I could have". I never want to be that person. I want to retire when I am still young at heart but with a roof over my head. I want to travel to Nepal and camp on the side of the mountain and trek until I'm dirty and dusty and hot and my feet have blisters. But I want to go to New York too, and drink fancy cocktails in an amazing dress with even more spectacular shoes. I want to go on a Cruise Ship that is taller than the highest mountain in Brisbane and goggle at the opulence of the lobby. I want to do things that I will never be able to do if I just do enough.

It's probably a curse to always want more. I can think of at least one good friend who may or may not read this who will probably shake their head. Think that killing myself for this job and being so strung out by study and stress and mindfuckery that I can't even hug them when I see them but struggle not to keel over instead is not worth it. That any benefit I can find, even if it's making a 20 year old boy feel less miserable for 15 minutes does not weigh up against the rest. And maybe that's true too.

But this is my truth and that mindfuckery took me to Paris where the wind was cold and slapped my face and my fingers burned and my ears hurt. And it will take me other places too, other places that allow me to dream and wonder and plan and anticipate. And it forces me to think. To be organised. To be unselfish sometimes. To be a better person. And that's probably the best bit of all. 

Azygos

The polish lasted 20 hours. So a new record. Scratching the polish off like superglue from fingers is oddly hypnotic. And I still haven't bitten them today. My toes are still pretty.

I went for my 6 weekly wax appointment this morning and the wax was too hot. My thigh has a red blotch on it that curves upwards and across the softest part. It doesn't hurt any more but the redness remains.

I tried to study today. I opened all my books, I laid out my favourite pens. And then I just sat there. Blankly. For probably an hour. I read 14 words in an e-mail and all rational thought deserted me. My pen trembled in my fingers so I put it down. Bit my lip.

Then I shakily wrote a few words about the azygos vein. Which means "no pair". The irony stung just a little bit.

Panic, it is all encompassing. But my legs are soft and smooth and I still have twinkly toes. And I sent a gift today, to someone who means a lot to me. And I have to remember that the sun will keep on rising and falling whether I fail anatomy or not.

Bonus points if you pick up all the labelling errors (to be fair I did it at 3am).  

Sketchy

It was a hot and tense start to the weekend, with no rain and no relief in sight. I felt tired and hot and resentful and not inclined to be a loving wife or mother. The exorbitant electricity bill courtesy of an ailing refrigerator and the necessity of replacement just fouled my mood further.

It was lucky then, that in a burst of forethought and perseverance I had booked a babysitter for Sunday so that after a workout at the gym, Bingley could run off and not think about children for a while.

We went to yum cha and then to my beloved GoMA to see Matisse. I adored the exhibition. I loved standing with my nose almost against the glass as the worried stewards looked on so that I could see every last stroke of the pen or where the stump had been smudged into the vellum to create shadows and softness.

My very favourite bit of all though, was at the very end of the exhibition where a hall had been set up like Matisse's studio, and there were free drawing pencils, art boards and an encouragement to sit back and create. I have been drawing a lot lately, studying with pictures and sketching the finer details of the foramina of the sphenoid but sitting there with a large piece of thick card and a lovely soft pencil while I looked at art work in between all the others doing the same thing filled me with the sort of contented bliss that comes with doing what you love best.

I loved sneaking a peak at the works being created, from little tiny girls, balancing on a stool, to stooped and serious gentlemen studiously recreating still life. I loved the sound of pens rasping softly against paper and bodies bent over their works. The absorption of trying to recreate something on paper. And I loved being amongst that. Being completely absorbed and not noticing an older woman at my elbow watching my every pencil movement and encouraging me to continue. I loved the dark smudge of graphite over my palm where it brushed the page. And I loved best of all that from the rough sketches little bits of reality imprinted on the paper.

While Bingley sipped his coffee and ate shortbread overlooking the river I sparkled and sipped tea and smudged my face with my graphite-y hand and wished that I could sit curled with my neck aching balanced on the chair and practice and practice and practice until I was good at this. But even more than being good, I just wanted to keep doing it. My fingers literally tingled.

Not Matisse, but I can't resist marble

My fellow sketchers

20 minutes later

Studying the orbit - handwriting bonus for the graphologists

Almost finished the cerebellum

Finally coming to grips with the palatine bones

Sunshine under rain

The second week has been easier. I no longer feel as in the way. Or so stupid. I no longer feel like this was a big mistake. I still feel like a fraud and it still seems unbelievable that this hasn't been figured out and that I've been sent home in disgrace, but I've got some spice back, and I would fight back if they did. I may not be that clever, learned, industrious person right now. But I will be some day.

As I drove home this afternoon it was bucketing with rain. Big splashy swathes of Summer rain that ran down the windows and smelled delicious. The sun was setting behind the mountains and just as I neared home it burst from underneath the clouds and made each sparkling drop golden. I was smiling uncontrollably, happy and wondering if anything in life could be more beautiful when the sky above me forked with lightning while a rainbow shimmered in a full double arc across the sky.

Rodin, Renoir, Gustav and turning 30

I could go one of two ways with this entry, I could continue on my whimsical tour guide Barbie posts, or I could talk about what it was like to turn 30 on top of the Eiffel Tower surrounded by lights. The short answer is that it was an emotional day for me, partly hormonal, but absolutely impacted by the feeling of actually being between dream and reality. I had always dreamed of Paris, of being there, of belonging there. I did not expect the instantaneous accord that I felt with the place, even though I had always suspected. I knew, from the first day that we were there, that I had always meant to be there. And that if I could do things over, that I may not have waited for that perfect, exhilirating moment, watching the full moon over Montmartre and the proposals all around me. Part of me wanted to be alone, and part of me wanted something more. Something else. I cried all the way through my birthday lunch, not sobbing or making a scene, but just tears continuing to fall even though I was trying hard not to.

I woke on the morning of my 30th birthday, to find that for the first time, I had slept in. After breakfast at home, we made the short walk to the Musee d'Orsay, where I had saved my favourite art gallery especially, wanting to see Renoir and the Impressionists and Courbet's Origine du Monde. I had, in my usual, irrepressible anticipatory way built it up to be something extra special for my birthday. I had known, even though I had hoped otherwise, that Bingley had not planned anything, nor marked the day especially, and I wanted something that I would recall with beautiful clarity about turning 30. So you can perhaps imagine how deflated I felt, as we stood in line, to read the signs advising reduced entry because of renovations for the Impressionist exhibit. It completely winded me, in a way that was disproportionate to reality, because the museum still held beautiful artworks and sculptures that I got to see, including an unanticipated display of Pre-Raphaelite works by some of my favourite artists of all time. But I felt miserable. I had wanted to see Renoir, knowing that it would likely be years before I got to come back if at all. Even original Millais paintings could not quite bring me out of my funk.

Bingley is a wonderful man, and I love him dearly, but birthdays are not things he does well. He often buys me expensive or beautiful things (you will see evidence of that later), but I am not someone who finds value in dollar amounts so much as thought. He did not see the tragedy in my having missed the one thing I had really planned for myself for my birthday, and talked instead about how I was in Paris, and wasn't that the best gift of all? I know he meant well, but I was upset as well because yes, I was in Paris, because I planned it. I booked the trip, I researched every part of it. I worked damned hard to save up every dollar that went into the trip. So when, in the middle of the street he asked where we were going next, and then became irritable when I asked him where we were going I burst into tears. I just had hoped, irrationally, that he was holding out, that just once he had planned something, some little thought somewhere other than "just going along with what you want". But no.

So after lunch, and a while in our apartment to calm down and stop crying and fix my make up, I went with my back up plan, that I'd hoped I wouldn't have to use. We walked to the Musee Rodin, to see the mansion where Rodin's studio had been, and the gardens that held his most famous bronze works. I was far more subdued on this day, the morning having dulled my usual exuberance. As we queued in the sunshine, I listened to the many languages babbling around me, and retreated into my own private bubble, waiting to be admitted to the mansion.

I am not sure what I expected, or if I had expected anything, but the museum was lovely. Cluttered and slightly haphazard and yet elegant and beautiful. Sensuous sculptures in glittering marble, busts of famous artists and personnages, sketches and details. My favourite room of all was one that showcased Rodin's affinity and obsession with hands. Understanding this passion, I was mesmerised by the light coming in from the full windows as it fell on the fingers - intertwined or barely touching. Feeling my heart squeeze at the sculpture of lovers hands - the smooth planes of masculinity and feminity in perfect marble. The light was falling between the two and it seemed to glow. As if the resonance of the feeling between the two was so strong that it could create light itself.

I wandered later, through the sculpture gallery outside in a kind of half daze, my mind stuck on the beauty of marble and the way that a single man could capture something so wonderful within its depths. I was brought out of my deep introspection only by the stunning display of scented Rodin pink roses that lined the gardens and courtyards. Finding myself under the brooding thinker, as he surveyed hell below him.

Afterwards we quietly wandered back to our apartment, and I felt full, satiated. We ate at our little table and chairs, and I collated my bits and pieces, carefully stowing ticket stubs and metro tickets to keep because I'm built that way. I had also planned, for later that evening for us to take a lift to the top of the Eiffel Tower, and had pre-booked tickets. They were later than I"d hoped, and later than we'd previously really stayed up since we'd arrived in Paris, so I was worried that we would be too tired to appreciate them fully. It was very cold when we left the apartment to catch the train to the tower, and I shivered as I bought chocolate from a vending machine as a birthday dessert.

However from the second we surfaced from the underground station, we were completely enveloped in the carnival atmosphere surrounding the tower. There were vendors hustling their jingling souvenirs, but never pushy. There were crowds of people, young and old, excited and animated as they stood under the magnificent lighting that showed off the tower to her best advantage yet. We were standing directly under her, when it struck the hour, and the racing lights effervescing up and down were truly spectacular. Yes, it was the most touristy thing that we'd done since we'd arrived, but it was possibly also my favourite. There was music, joyful noise, and just a pervasive sense of gladness. Everyone thrilled to be there, a carnival of joy. I snapped photos from all angles, trying to capture just how amazing it looked and how I felt. All of my self indulgent and selfish sadness evaporated as I instead lined up in our express queue and gazed up at the top.

It was squishy and crowded, and full of romance in amongst the simple elegance of riveted steel. It took at least an hour of queuing in the freezing cold to get to the very top, but every second was worth it. Not just for the view, though that was incredible. Nor the overpriced champagne that fizzed and popped in my glass in perfect synchronicity with the effervescent lights. Nor the full moon, rising above Montmartre and bathing the city with heavenly light. It was something more than that, something so perfect that transcended anything that I can write about and translated simply into my eyes smiling, properly, until the irises were almost pure gold. 

Home

I have been home for nearly a week now, and fully intending to update on my blog, but was never entirely sure where to start. Do I tell humorous anecdotes of silly things that happened or that I saw? Do I take the romantic route and talk about the beauty of the place? Do I tell about the tears on my birthday, or the whimsical ones on the taxi drive to Charles De Gaulle? Do I just show some of the 600+ pictures I took, of the astounding architecture or of light so pale that it kissed my skin? I'm not sure, so I think about it some more, and ultimately don't write anything.

We arrived home on Sunday in brilliant sunshine. It was warm, but not too warm, and as we sat in the car coming home, the light through the window was hot where my skin had been burned in Thailand. The Elfling and the Monkey were seated either side of me, and their chatter melded into white noise while my whole body relaxed at being home. I remember looking at Bingley, as he went about doing the things that he does at home, and seeing him differently, to the companion who had followed me half way around the world and back.

What I can say is that Paris was everything that I knew that it would be. It was me. Sitting on the rattling Metro one afternoon, with sore feet and messy hair, my lipstick bright red, reflecting of the glass and my eyeliner stark against the unadulterated gold of my eyes. I belonged there. In the misty limestoned light, it was like ghosts of someone I had always assumed I would be were whispering around me. It was exhilirating and painful and beautiful all at once. Can a city make love to you? I'm not sure, but I felt flushed and beautiful and alive in its presence, more than I can recall having ever felt. I felt calm and tempestuous. Langorous and alive. Liquid.

Whether it was my research, or my sight unseen love or all the dreams I had had of the place it felt like home. From the very first moment of being greeted in French, to the lady who handed me my change in the crowded Franprix, I have no doubt that in some other version of my life I lived there, breathed there, loved there.

It is raining now, beautiful Queensland Summer rain that is sweet and clear and tastes of sunshine. The smells of Earth and the purple carpet of jacarandas. Golden rain. It captures the heat and the light and is why I never want to leave this place to live. It rained too in Thailand, heavy monsoonal rain, but flavoured with smog and thick grey. And it rained in Paris, austere, beautiful, silvery rain. Rain that misted my eyelashes and ruined every hairstyle I attempted and clothed everything in pale shadowy curtains.

I left my adolescence and my twenties in France. Left them there to dance with the ghosts of possibilities and leave me with memories to make me smile and forget how much I wanted two disparate lives, two chances at living. But I came home to my Possum, who grew into a big boy in two short weeks, and learned how to speak while I was away. A beautiful golden haired child that loves his Muhmee. And I came to the conclusion - Non, je ne regrette rien.

Summer

I found new mosquito coils that are made of sandalwood and citronella and clay, and they are perfuming my summer. Richly sweet, rising in ghostly swirls above their tins as I laze about and look out at the lights of the city beyond. Drifting on breezes and lilting softly. Undulations of scent.

My hands feel roughened and worked, my nails ragged at present. I want to dig them in superfine sand until they are baby soft and I have sandcastles to show for my work. Then run them over warm, sun glazed skin and draw circles in oil.

The concavity of my belly is rounding softly aga. Happiness making me hungry. The earthiness of preparing food is sensuous in summer. I like the way that the scents of the indecent fruit intermingle and the juices spill out over hands. I love the way that each golden drop of Summer fruit tastes of the sun, and warms from within.

I started wearing my perfume again today. The golden bottle brought back out from the depths of my vanity to again perfume the warmer days. I sprayed the air before cautiously walking into the mist, and the olfactory memory punched deep and low, and reminded me of Summer and heat. And I smiled when I caught the trace of it, with a swish of my hair. Let the heat and oil from my body mix with the golden scent to remake Summer again.

Paris, Or: Why I need to learn how to edit

When I tell people I want to travel, there is never much confusion. Most people like to travel, and enthusiastically will tell you their wishlist. Some want to do the great Australian trek in a caravan over rutted tracks. Others want nothing more than to sit in a goldola in Venice. Almost everyone wants to see somewhere. Go some place.

But for me, I want to go everywhere. I want to see every thing. I want to travel as much as I want to breathe, and the wanderlust is strong. I have always wanted to travel, some of my earliest memories are poring over Mum and Dad's heavy atlas, reverently looking at maps and wondering what it would be lke to stand on *that* coastline. To read Jane Austen and imagine actually being at Bath, standing on a stone wall looking out to sea. To be in a cold, wet castle in Scotland.

I learned the currencies of the world with "Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego" and I remember the first few times I played, having a little handwritten list, on a scrap of grubby paper that had the currencies and the capitals of all the countries you could visit. I was about 8 at the time, and after I'd played a thrilling game (only just catching that wily Carmen) I would commit that place to memory, and then later flick through the atlas and find it. Stab a little finger at the capital and feel a sense of one day. One day I will go there. One day I will stand there on a street corner in this historic city.

I had it all planned out pretty much. Once I finished highschool, I would go to uni, and in my end of year breaks I would earn enough money to travel somewhere. I would go somewhere different every time. Europe one time, maybe doing the classic Aussie backpacker thing and sharing a dingy flat in London while waiting tables with daytrips to Amsterdam in betwen. Or trekking the Annapurna one year. Cold and tired and exultant. My parents completely expected that this is what I would do, because although I am a dreamer, I am also stubborn and determined, and if I truly want something then usually I will achieve it.

Except, I didn't.

Somehow I ended up married instead. And pregnant by 21. And people shook their heads at me and said I'd regret it, that I'd given up my youth and my freedom to do those things. And because I am stubborn, I said i'd do it anyway. I'd show them. Except of course I chose to study medicine of all things, and medicine is expensive and time consuming. And when I came home I had a little person who was also expensive and time consuming (as well as being the light of my life). And so it just didn't happen.

In 2008, when the medical school thing was nearing the end and Bingley and I were done with the baby making thing, we would lie in bed and talk about the trips we would now be able to afford. Skiing holidays for him, with promises to go walking in the snow for me. But above all, and for no rational reason I wanted to go to Europe. It's such a cliche, and we certainly planned trips to Macchu Picchu and Antarctica as well, but I wanted to go to Europe and most of all Paris.

I had started to think of itineraries. I had pie in the sky images of where we'd go framed in my head. I imagined all sorts of things, and then I found out I was pregnant. I know it is selfish, but giving up that dream was so hard. Giving up that dream and being sick and knowing I wouldn't be able to complete my internship year and that we couldn't buy a house... all of that was so mindfuckingly bad. Except of course you can't live in the "what ifs" and you only get one shot at life, so I shook myself, got on with it and of course the Possum was worth every second.

But I remember clearly saying to Bingley, that I didn't care if we'd lost all those little ephemeral plans, as long as we did two things. One was that we still went overseas at the end of my uni - didn't care where, but I had to get a stamp in my passport. And the other was that we would get to Paris before I was 30.

And so this is the year, the year that I turn the big 3-0 in October, and I want to click over that milestone in Paris. It has become mythical to me now, this place that is so familiar and yet never met. I can plan a week's itinerary without looking at a single guidebook because I feel like we've been conversing for years. I lived in Geneva for 3 months when I was a teenager, on exchange and practising my French, and I had the chance then, to go to meet Paris for a weekend, but I declined. I can't tell you exactly why, but I think it was because I knew that it was waiting for me. I had to discover her when I was ready. When I was paying for the ticket from my own hard earned money. And when standing under the Tour Eiffel was truly the culmination of years of dreams.

I am preparing for this trip as if I were meeting a lover for the first time. I want to know everything there is to know about her. I have firm ideas of what I will wear to meet her, and a folder in my favourites full of images of everything. The coat I want to buy and the boots that match. The trees I want to touch in the park I want to explore. And yet at the same time I just want to wander. To not be scheduled but just to be in her presence. To sit under a tree and marvel at the sky between the branches. To eat from somewhere random because it's just where I was when I realised I was hungry.

To take my sketch book and sketch badly in pencil. To have my photo taken on one of the many bridges that traverse  the Seine, and for the breeze to whip at my hair and for the Gleam to come and turn my eyes gold in the sunset. And to just be there. There in Paris and knowing that I have achieved something out of my tublist - so called because it was far too big to just sit in a bucket.

I want to be healthy and thin to meet her. I want to wear beautiful things, because it is Paris. I want to wake up every morning in a tiny cold apartment and to remember each day, that I'm in Paris. Inside her. A part of her. A camera toting, green, stary eyed visitor, but one that feels a connection, and has come to seek her out to see if she feels it too.

And even if she doesn't, knowing that I will take home a fistful of memories and the knowledge that I'm living my dream. Or at least the parts that I can.

Ascii Curtains

I'm too tired to write much tonight, and I forget all of the good ideas I had for posts. One day I will learn to write them down instead of only capturing faint echoes days or weeks after the initial completed composition. But that will probably only happen when I become a grown up once and for all, and I'm not quite ready for that.

Today we hung up curtains and put up a picture rail and went to Ikea and bought candlesticks and had meatballs. Then came home and went to swimming lessons and bought birthday presents for the various school parties over the next 2 weekends (four at last count, not including the BBQ we're having tomorrow).

It was the sort of lovely mundane day that is helped by watching the new flocked white curtains dance in the breeze. There is nothing that quite centres my focus on home as decorating it. Even when pregnant I never had proper nesting, I only had "interior design" nesting where balance and flow of a room were far more important than scrubbing skirting boards with a toothbrush.

I am quite content at the moment. The part of me that was seeking something this year found it, and it's strange but having found exactly what I was looking for I feel calmer. I don't ever need to seek more again, because I know exactly where it is, and that I will never find it quite so perfectly again. This is not a sad thought, but actually makes it easier to keep on keeping on.

The children are glorious at the moment. They deserve a post of their own each soon. I am in love with all of them, and as naughty and messy and loud as they are, I love them all the more for it. They are revelling in me being home so much the last few weeks, and I worry terribly about how they will fare the next few - but they have Bingley, and they have so much love they can't help but be warmed by it.



PS this is just a little extra for the LMM fans. I found it online a few years ago, and I re-read it about once a year. Hope you enjoy it too if you've not seen before. The Alpine Path

Patchouli

On a cool November night, 10 years ago, I wandered around aimlessly, looking for distraction. I wanted to stop hurting, and to stop thinking, and to just enjoy myself. Not in the mindless way, but to actually have fun. As I was close to flat broke and on a self imposed no alcohol period (due to the fact that I thought I'd like it too much and not stop) my options were pretty limited, and at 8pm at night on a weekday without a car, I couldn't go far.

I randomly decided that what I felt like doing was rollerblading, because it took a lot of effort and I wasn't particularly good at it. So to get up any speed and a sweat I would have to work hard, and that's exactly what I wanted. So I knocked on Bingley's open door, where he was sitting in some bizarre position in his chair playing computer games and asked if I could borrow his roller blades.

Being the type that never said no to anyone, let alone me, he bemusedly handed them over then went back to his game while I went out and sweated and rolled until my body was tired and I knew I'd be stiff in the morning, enjoying the cool breeze of the black night air on my face and through my untied hair that clung to my sweaty forehead. I unbuckled them at the bottom of the stairs and carried them up to Bingley's room to hand them over and go to bed exhausted.

Except, when I got there, instead of putting them down and walking away like both of us expected me to, I walked in and sat on his bed instead and started chatting. We talked for at least an hour, about stuff I didn't even remember, aside from teh fact that I enjoyed it. I did a lot of the talking, because Bingley is a listener, not a talker, but there was no artifice. There was no small talk. I had nothing to prove and it was fun. We talked about his trip to Colorado and I think I flicked through his photos. There were a few of him and the kids he was teaching to snowboard, and I loved them, and I loved how he enjoyed talking about working with children, of teaching.

And I was cold at one point, the sweat drying in the cool night air and he gave me his jumper, from the ski resort in Colorado where he'd worked so that I would stay instead of going back to my room. Once warm though the sleepiness crept in and I lay down on the bed as we talked, until there were comfortable pauses in the chatting and eventually I fell asleep.

This was notable in itself being as I had had so much difficulty sleeping of late with the grumbling anxiousness and grief in my belly hurting me more when I tried to sleep. But that night there was none of that. That night there was comfort. Warmth. It felt like finally coming home. There were no magic fireworks on my side, and it was not a moment of desperate teenage hormones. It was just home.

The proof of this came when Bingley gently pulled the blankets over me and kissed my forehead before curling back up in his chair, leaving me to sleep. I was vulnerable and easy that night. I had had another friend who had proved to me just how very vulnerable I'd been, but my loving husband never once took advantage. Not for the 3 months that it took for me to fall in love with him. Or in the 10 years since.

And today I feel so grateful for his quiet, determined and supportive love. And the long stemmed red roses that waited for me when I came home. And the patchouli incense that he's burning (because he knows I like it) even though it gives him hayfever. And new ankle bells.

Processing

I dreamed of you. You were not yet born but I knew you. Curled deep within me, limbs folded in the tight surrounds, not uncomfortable but close. Your perfect lips moved as if to suck the fingertips that brushed them, knowing even now before you'd taken your first breath how to suckle. Your eyes closed, lids fluttering sometimes in response to the light on my belly.

I dreamt of lying in warm afternoon light, skin exposed so that you could feel the warmth too, casting you in the rose tinted glow. Your father talking to you, worshipping you even though he had never met you. Reverent at the sight of my pale taut skin, housing you, keeping you safe.

Your hair, long and dark, almost black, swished in the warm water that surrounded you, tickling your translucent ears. Your dark eyelashes matching your hair, hiding the eyes that perfectly matched mine beneath.

We were waiting for you in the sunshine. Your father and I, dreaming of you. Of our life with you. How all would be different when you came. Hands over my skin, feeling you stretch beneath. Breath catching as I had no room to inhale. Rubbing the outline of tiny feet.

I dreamed of you coming, of birthing you as your father cried. Of holding you wet and slippery and warm against my chest bathed in pain and joy. Of the damp ringlets on your head matching mine. Of your first cry. Of tiny long fingers that wrapped around my own, snaring my heart for eternity.

It was so real I woke in the cool darkness of reality and ran my hand over the softness of my belly, tracing the indent of the pale silver scars that 3 pregnancies have left and felt a tear trickle down my cheek while my throat burned. I know that this dream was stupendously easy to interpret. After playing with a newborn on the weekend and also now that we cannot have any more children there is obviously some adjusting and processing to go through. But for a second it was so real. I felt you. I loved you.