Archive for the 'sanity' Category

mindfulness

As this year winds to its ignominious conclusion, I am defiantly focused on the things in my life that I am happy about. These include but are not limited to Claire, growing like a weed, gap-toothed, volatile, brilliant and charming; Julia, rose-lipped, wide-eyed, white-haired and implacable. Jeremy, muscular from wushu and still as funny and even-tempered as ever, continues to put up with me despite my cranky shenanigans. Australia is beautiful, my favourite beach golden and opal, the air full of sunshine and birdsong. Mangoes here smell like childhood and hope.

We still have all four of the childrens’ grandparents, and fine grandparents they are too. All siblings are likewise present and accounted for, and most are happily pair-bonded to boot. My niece and nephew Kelly and Ross are delightful and intelligent and obviously closely related to my own daughters. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is a bit wet, but he’s no John Howard, and for this we are all extremely grateful. Similarly Obama, while under more pressure than any one man should have to bear, has shown an enviable track record of steely nerves, and his cabinet appointments are thoughtful and encouraging.

The world is full of books to read and films to watch, meals to make and eat, music to hear and play, science museums to explore, valleys and forests and mountains and beaches to hike and camp at and loll upon. I’m glad there is a Kiva.org and a Human Rights Watch and a Medicins Sans Frontieres, a St Luke’s Hospital and a Monroe Elementary School. The same Pacific washes Sydney and San Francisco. The same tide that washes my past away carries me forward into my childrens’ future.

only disconnect

Claire started school today. Claire started school! She is exactly five years and eight months old. She looked heartbreakingly young in her school uniform. In spite of our extensive discussions before the fact, she was a bit taken aback by the fact that the teachers spoke only Spanish. “But I could work out what they meant, from the pictures,” she explained.

She didn’t immediately make a lifelong friend, which has cast me into massive disarray. What if she ends up a lonely, friendless loser like me? THE SKY WILL FALL. It’s interesting (in a sick way) to notice how deep the roots of my neurosis run. Twenty-three years since I started therapy, five years since I went on the meds and it still only takes a whiff of schoolyard drama to leave me moaning in a fetal position.

Claire, of course, is completely unperturbed.

So much of good parenting involves concealing your baggage under nearby furniture while adopting a fixed grin. Oh! It’s just like voting!

quack

C: What are the meds for?

R: For the CRAZY.

C: Is that true?

R: Yup.

C: What does the crazy look like?

R: You can’t see it. It’s something you feel.

C: What does it feel like?

R: It feels like the dark.

C: It feels like the duck?

R: No! Like darkness.

C: Like duckness?

in sydney

Last week I took Bebe to her annual checkup and saw a new vet. I tried to explain about, you know, that cute little RENDING LIMB FROM LIMB thing that she does.

“So when does she bite?” asked the vet.

“When she’s not getting enough attention,” I said. “Or when she’s getting too much attention.”

I have a similar relationship with this blog. If I haven’t been updating it’s because I have been too happy, or not happy enough. Unfortunately lately it’s been the latter. Fascinating, if disturbing, to see myself fall into a bunch of familiar patterns from the days when I was a crazy miserable loon. There’s an important difference this time, though. Part of my mind is detached from the process: “Oh look, that was an irrational piece of depressive thinking. Hey, check it out, I’m evaluating everything in absolutes again!”

The timing was kinda lucky, if anything about having a broken brain can be lucky, in that it neatly aligned with one of my favourite strategies for coping with stress: fleeing the country. We had a startlingly pleasant sixteen hour flight with the short people – all hail Qantas, world’s most chillin’ airline – and now we’re all in Sydney, gorging on the in-season stone fruit and revelling in the warmth. Of course, it’s pouring, but that just makes the garden smell more Edenic.

Jack said something very melancholy the other day: that leaving your hometown, becoming an expatriate, is the ultimate admission of core loneliness. But the converse is also true. Coming home reminds me that I have many resources, many communities and many friends.