Claire and I were in Santa Cruz, on the beach, reading books. We didn’t think of you once.

I have picked Claire up from the Y. We’re waiting for the 14 Mission bus. Claire is limpeted onto me; her hair keeps blowing up my nose.

Me: Let’s keep loving each other for ever!

Claire (laughing): We’re already doing that!

Jeremy’s wushu school held a demonstration at the Asian Art Museum last night. Wushu is derived from Chinese martial arts; it’s a combination of forms and sparring. The forms are like a beautiful, gymnastic dance. The sparring is scary and exciting, all whirring swords and nunchucks! And it doesn’t hurt that everyone is wearing brightly coloured silk pajamas.

Teacher Philip did his drunken fist routine, where the fighter is pretending to be impaired to Lull the opponent into a False Sense of Security. His wife Zhang Hong Mei, a former Chinese national champion, danced with two swords. She is so fast and strong and graceful that even if you are sitting ten feet away from her you cannot believe your eyes.

The kids were enthralled and inspired. All the way home they were practising their forms.

I don’t want to claim to be running again, but I have been out twice in a week. It reminds me how much I love our hill. On Sunday, on the way up, I saw a hummingbird standing in the air among the Eugenia Street callistemon.

Then, when I got to the top of the hill, the red-tailed hawk that lives in the pines flew directly over my head to the hillside. He was so close I could see the sky between his tail feathers.

He glared at me gazing at him, his eyes yellow and mad, then he flew up and back over my head. Something trailed from his talons that I thought were jesses until I realized it was the tail of the mouse he’d just caught.

I went to bed at the girls’ bedtime a couple of nights last week and felt much better. Then of course I ran around like a nutter all weekend. Visited George the horse, of whom more presently, maybe, for cuddles and manure; took the manure to Armistead Maupin Elementary, where I spread it around a pair of fig trees. Worked in the sun to help build the cob bench and got thoroughly sunburned. Claire and another girl were at war with the boys. The boys were a Wookie-Clone alliance, armed with light sabers. Claire and her sidekick fought back with guns. I thought that showed admirable initiative and a sound grasp of tactics.

I took home some squash blossoms and two yellow zucchinis from the school garden, which made me feel all warm and locavorous over having turned horse poo into summer squash. I tried to make squash blossom fritters, which were not especially successful. Then J and I went to the Dark Knight for a date, which was also not very successful. Heath Ledger was brilliant and heartbreaking, but other than that it was just a big shouty film and dumber than most. I walked out ten minutes before the end. Salome and I are going to get the DVD of Brokeback and have a good sob over that.

Sunday I took Claire to her piano class, and she and her teacher played a duet of Beethoven’s Ode to Joy while I grinned until my face split in half and my heart exploded with pride. You could practically tell it was actually Ode to Joy! Claire has been practicing furiously ever since we watched a YouTube of some ten-year-old prodigy playing Chopin. “He’s better than me!” she wailed. “I bet he practices a lot,” I said, and that was it. She played every night for a week.

It’s been crazy. I got that bistro set for the terrace and we’ve had friends over nearly every night to sit out there and drink sauvignon blanc with us. Which has been delightful, except that I am always hungover which makes me even grumpier in the mornings. Hard to imagine but true. On the bright side I got chunky gold streaks in my hair, and between that and the excellent European foundation garments making me feel like a million pounds sterling, I am probably the cutest I have ever been.

On Saturday Claire and I went to Armistead Maupin Elementary for our first garden day. It’s sort of miraculous: there’s this sliver of land between the school and the fence, and it has been planted with corn and lettuce and herbs, peaches and currants and hazelnuts. I met the PTA presidents and a bunch of other parents and Devon the eco volunteer, and Claire met Ivy and Toni who are also going into kinder and might even end up in her class.

We helped build a cob bench, a mix of clay and sand and straw that is sort of like adobe. Claire and a bunch of the other kids mixed it by stomping it with their bare feet, then we all squished it around the stones that make the core of the bench. Very primal to be building with these ancient materials: good villagey bonding experience.

Today I finally paid attention to my car’s loud whiney noise. It was whining every time I turned a corner, which was annoying because I turn corners a lot. Takes a village to fix a car: the cool punk rock bikers who live with lovely old Stan down the street diagnosed it instantly when I parked beside them yesterday as low power steering fluid.

I considered changing it myself until I researched the matter online and found that the wrong kind of fluid will cause your power steering to INSTANTLY EXPLODE or something, so I took it to Jerry’s where they fixed it as part of an oil change. Because this was Sunday and they were shorthanded I was conscripted to help them push an SUV into the garage. I love my mechanic. And my punk rock biker neighbours.

This afternoon Claire and I picked blackberries on Bernal Hill, and made them into pie.

The excellent Spanish class that Claire and Julia attend has its own DVDs and CDs of original music; one of the tracks we all like is about opposites, and ends “Triste, feliz; triste, feliz.” Sad, happy, sad, happy. I’ve taken to singing this to Jeremy when I’m feeling particularly mood-swingy.

And it’s been that kind of a week. I cried with happiness over two newly-announced pregnancies, both hard-won and full of hope. And I cried with the other thing over having to buy flowers for two funerals, one long-expected but still wrenching, the other out of the blue and incomprehensible.

And life just keeps tumbling on. I cook dinner and order school uniforms for Claire and the uniforms arrive and she puts them on and is transformed into a schoolgirl! My baby! Not possible. She has a wobbly tooth!

I am very keen to see Up the Yangtze, the documentary of the last cruise up the Three Gorges before they were dammed. I think a lot about the villagers whose homes were drowned.

Time is a river.

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Originally uploaded by Goop on the lens

…and how was your day?

Ja: Mummy what’s that?

R: A big nasty pimple.

Ja: Mummy got owie?

R: Yes, it does hurt.

Ja: Owie?

R: Yup.

Ja: Julia kiss.

She takes my face in her hands and kisses my zit as if it were a dimple.

A cup of hot tea next to me when I woke up. The same tea, cooler, when I woke up again after a peaceful doze. The cat snuggling into me. The children behaving delightfully. Our Spanish class, always excellent fun. Milo’s third birthday party. A pinata in the park. A visit from Jamey, Rowan and Cian. A run on the hill, where the California poppies are rioting. A hot shower. A cup of hot tea next to me as I write this. Being three-quarters of the way through an excellent book (Bridge of Birds.) My lovely Mr Jeremy sitting in one of our handsome new, thriftily Craigsourced armchairs. Plans for a sushi dinner.

Great newses! First up, massive man-love between my Viable Paradise crushees Cory and Leonard. Second, much-wanted and hoped-for twins, born on April Fool’s! Small siblings to big sister born on Halloween! It is all very cheering.

ETA: BABY OWLS.

In the worlds before Monkey, primal chaos reigned. Heaven sought order, but the phoenix can fly only when its feathers are grown.

Julia has been having very vivid and disturbing night terrors, usually only once a week or so but last night over and over again. She thrashes and kicks and cries “No no no no no,” and though her eyes are half-open she can’t really see and isn’t really awake and can’t be consoled. It’s horrible. And loud. And by the time she’d had her fifth night terror early this morning – and then gone on to do a huge poo and wake up quite happily and settle down on the sofa for a Dora marathon – her father and I were as ringwraiths, mere hollowed-out shadows of our former vibrant selves.

Which seems as good a time as any to mention how utterly I love her. She’s well into her two-year-old explosion in theory of mind, and has developed a massive crush on her Spanish teacher Susy. She is also greatly attached to her bear Bess and likes to gesture with her to make a point. She likes it when I get pedicures:

“Want see prilly toes!”

She calls Bebe “Killy” and showers her with affection. That vicious little cat’s eyes go wide:

“How DARE you…” And then she half-closes her eyes and starts to purr.

Jules gives the best hugs, solar plexus to solar plexus, her entire body glommed onto you like a starfish. If you won’t get down to her eye level to receive one of these in the approved fashion, she’ll improvise by glomming onto your legs.

She is a point source of happiness.

This morning I asked her: “Are you my Julia?”

“No,” she said. “I MY Julia.”

The nature of Monkey was irrepressible!

(What does it say about my misspent youth that I can accurately date that clip based on Pigsy’s prosthetics?)

Dear Tetsuya Wakuda,

Re: the a la carte menu served at your restaurant on February 19th 2008 (my birthday), including (but not limited to) smoked ocean trout with avruga caviar, leek & crab custard, confit of Petuna Tasmanian ocean trout with daikon and fennel (I don’t even like daikon and fennel, except yours,) grilled fillet of barramundi, twice-cooked spatchcock and oh my god the Wagyu beef with lime and wasabi:

Marry me.

There was also that Sydney rock oyster with rice wine vinaigrette. Tell me the truth, do you feed your oysters on butter?

And the blood orange sorbet.

My God.

With inexpressible respect and admiration, I remain, yours sincerely,
R

We went to the farm today. Bellboy, the world’s best pony, Claire’s pony, just turned 35. His mother made it to 37. Claire and Julia both got to ride him. He’s the pony I learned to ride on when I was 13; did I mention that?

As we were leaving I walked into the garden and found him in the sun, grazing on the green, green grass, looking exactly like a unicorn.

I want to burn that sight into my eyes so that I will never forget it.

ETA: Julia as she fell asleep said “I loff Bellboy. I loff horses.”

My heart went nova.

Then: “I loff toast.”

It took me a week to untangle from work, then I lost my glasses. It took me a few hours to figure out how to replace them in rural Queensland (a very fun road trip with my brother Alain, as it turned out) and then, because I was in rural Queensland trying to chillax, whatever the INS calls itself these days raised a question about my green card application.

Since there was exactly nothing I could do about it, I worked hard on being Zen; and the next time I checked my email my friends in the States had sorted everything, which makes me feel very loved.

Even with these transpacific stressors, the holiday is definitely working. I’m sleeping about ten hours a night and taking long naps in the afternoons, and behold, my cough has nearly cleared up. My sister was here for the weekend with her kids, making eleven of us altogether. Kelly and Ross were just delightful with my girls, very patient and playful and charming. It hurt to say goodbye.

Mum and Dad and Alain are still here, all camping on the same site. It’s beyond perfect. Our world is defined by the shops across the road – good cafes and restaurants, a butcher and a baker; the spectacular beach with its shipwreck; the creek that runs down to the beach; the playgrounds and the pool. The feel of everyday life is like Burning Man, oddly enough – walks and fun interspersed with socializing and tea.

I haven’t spent so much happy, unstructured time with my mum and dad and brother and sister since my wedding.

I was already feeling much better in Sydney, after going for a run through the rainforest gully behind Jeremy’s parents’ house, and being teased by my husband AND my brother about my Google hypochondria:

“Oh no! My hand has five fingers on it! What could this mean?”
“It must be… pentadactylism!”
“BILATERAL pentadactylism…”

Then we got on a plane (Julia already an old hand, outraged that there was no seat back video) and hired a car and drove through a no-visibility Queensland summer storm to the gloriously named Dicky Beach, where the tail end of a cyclone had whipped up the surf around the wreck of the Dicky.

We split a bottle of Wirra Wirra chardonnay with my mum and dad, and woke this morning to mackerel clouds and generous sunshine. There are five cafes, a pool, two playgrounds and a beach of awesome beauty, all within one minutes’ walk of our cabin.

My mood is much improved.