Mallacoota: a place for reflection

It's in lovely Mallacoota that this Mama finds herself these few days. After a drive of many hours and an overnight stop in Bairnsdale we arrived, excited, in this place of reflection.
All around our camper trailer are the reflections of beach houses, emerald green hills and gently bobbing boats. If we venture further afield we find emotions reflected in the boil of the stormy ocean, the serene waters of the top lake and the aerial mastery of pelicans.
It's a place for looking forward and looking back.
Yesterday, as this Mama took an early morning walk along the boardwalk at the lake's edge, thoughts turned to past times here. Years and years of family holidays were spent in this delightful part of the world. Back in those days there was Nan and Pa helping to look after us, taking us on their boat and fishing with us. Our cousins would sometimes come too and family felt much closer. It is not melancholy that Mallacoota inspires, but rather gratitude for those special times that this Mama holds in her heart. And hope, too, that these few days here will be a part of my girls' special holiday memories as they grow.

Packing to come home

Personal growth, like the seasons, is up and down I find. There are patches of time where this Mama feels like she's floating in a kind of limbo and other times when growth is almost exponential and definitely not predictable. Like the seasons around us in Mount Beauty.

And so it has been that this Mama found herself in a limbo these last few weeks (months - goodness knows?). I haven't been knitting for a while...and I haven't been sewing...and the blog has been neglected.... Perhaps it was the cold, short days of this season. Perhaps it was just time for a plateau.

Nevertheless Spring is here with increasing vigor and today our little family of four packed and cleaned and planned for a week away. With some camping with friends near the beach to a few days with Noni and Pa, a little holiday is just what we all need.

And amid all this packing and planning and cleaning I felt a shifting in the limbo and with it came a yearning for some Soulemama - my favourite blog, which had been neglected also in said limbo. So a a sneek peek it was, but my oh my, such inspiration, such love and joy and colour and all those good things that never fail to spark some inspiration inside me were there for the taking and I couldn't resist getting out my over locker and sewing machine. Finally. After being packed away lovingly that long season ago.

And as I returned to my holiday packing, after a quick little sew (just to check it was all working of course...), I thought about how I wasn't just packing and planning and cleaning to be prepared for our holiday activities, but I that I was also preparing our home for another chapter to begin when we return. Like a clean slate, I left surfaces empty, clothes away, games and toys organised, ready for them to be filled up, pulled out and played with in a new way. And I left myself with reminders of all those exciting fabrics, patterns and ideas that sprung forth with today's inspiration - ready to unleash myself upon when we return.

I feel the upwelling of creativity just beginning. Do you?

Everyday Marvels

Sometimes it feels like time bends, especially as a Mama. As I go about our daily business are girls, Rosie and Bethany, are growing. And as parents we are growing too. But sometimes, somewhere within all this change I feel like its moving too fast.

I think we must all know that feeling - as if fast forward has been pressed without you realising it and you're somewhere ahead of where you were last time you took notice.

It's like the moments in time are hard to grasp at the moment, and the skittish part of me - that part whose first instinct is to panic and analyse - is feeling deeply uncomfortable.

This morning I looked at my two growing girls and tried to capture the essence of them in that moment, on this day.

Bethany, with her current fetish for shoes big and small, is wearing a worn but lovely pair of hand-me-downs from a friend, and only moments earlier was wearing my gumboots.

Rosie is reading, reading, reading at the moment, loving the sounds of words as they roll off her tongue. I can see that she loves the autonomy of reading by herself, loves the access it gives her to a whole other world of ideas. And I can feel her confidence and identity grow with each book she reads.

It's these small things, these everyday marvels, that this Mama holds onto on this day.

Quiet dreaming

The house is empty except for me. The garden sings only the songs of the wind and the chickens and I are all that hear it.

If I stop. And sit. All I can hear is my breath.

Its so lovely, this quiet time. Its been too long since I had some, and although its tempting to blame circumstances for that, the reality is that the choice has always been mine. I've let chances for quiet reflection go, and I've hoped for some to come my way without putting in any effort. Now, after perhaps months of waiting, I have some time to myself.

And it feels like bliss.

My thoughts have stilled long enough for me to catch them and get some of them down on paper. I feel like I'm slowly exhaling out...out......out.......until I'm completely still and peaceful. Its delicious.

And I want some more please.

I read through my newly arrived copy of Spirited by Tara Bliss and Rachel McDonald and start asking myself some big questions - that's what reflection time is for right? That's why I've been needing this quiet space - so I can stop just doing and start thinking big again - so I can review my plans for myself and see if I'm thinking large enough - to see if I'm doing the most audacious thing I can be doing.

I think about my big dreams, some of which I've had for a while and some which are newbies:
1. I'm travelling through beautiful places in Australia visiting bookshops and signing copies of my inspiring, passionate book.
2. I'm living a joyful life where I feel freedom from self-sabotage, where I feel I can do what I dream of doing. Where my joy and inspiration is overflowing and my dreams are supported.
3. My skin is clear and radiates my natural beauty and joy.
4. I awaken each morning early, full of energy and clarity and quietly tap into a higher, loving self which guides me through my day with purpose.
5. I breathe life into my visions and dreams by sharing them with others with love through my blog and talking face to face.
6. I'm hiking to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro with great friends and in wonderful health. We have energy and a sense of accomplishment as we reach the top together.

Then I think about some other big questions - what are my gifts to the universe? And...what would happen if I treated my body with the utmost respect and kindness (from The Wellness Warrior)?
Wow, big questions indeed. And ones that will rest until my next quiet moment...as I hear the girls come in the door.

a cleansing sort of rain

I feel that I have little to write today, but of course that's not true. My brain is in a bit of a fog, I'm tired and I've decided to quit sugar again - starting today.

This feels like a time for change - this Springtime with its opening flowers and lengthening days. Its a time for growth, which I see manifested all around me, but I have been reluctant to accept in myself.

Today its raining - a light, ongoing patter of Spring rain that is sprinkling the new beetroot seedlings I planted out yesterday and watering in the lemonade tree I moved last week.

And it seems to match my thoughts, this rain, and I let go of some of the things I've been holding onto so tightly these last few weeks. Its a cleansing sort of rain that helps to bring me down to earth.

It seems funny to me that my depression leaves me unanchored and up in the air with confusion. And that what works for me is getting down lower - getting down to earth and grounded. This is what the rain is doing for this Mama today.

You see lately I've been struggling with the idea of having depression in an ongoing way, rather than just post-natally. I don't want to accept that there's something wrong with me and that I might need to stay taking anti-depressants for a long time, possibly until the end of my life. Don't get me wrong here folks, the jury is still out on how long I may need them, but the possibility remains and that's enough to disturb this tired Mama.

Because, to be honest, I've always harboured judgements against those who take prescription medication long-term. Those sort of judgements that sneek into conscious thinking every now and again, only to be pushed silently aside and hopefully forgotten because they're not polite and don't fit my clean image of myself. I've taken the moral high-ground and assumed that I was a better person because I didn't need to take anything. As if I was somehow more natural - more organic and real than them.

I'm not sad about this, nor am I punishing myself. Its simply a fact I acknowledge - that my perspective has shifted - has had to shift in order to accept my situation and choices.

For its in accepting others, isn't it, that we can then accept ourselves?

Just a bit wiser

I left Mount Beauty amidst some confusion and angst for our trip to Melbourne these last few days.

Some of Rosie's artwork - sometimes I feel like a four-headed mama too...

My head was full, as it often is for this Mama, but there was something more too. Something that for a while I couldn't quite define.

And then, over the course of an afternoon, just as I was packing, working, organising (and to be honest folks stressing), I felt it clearly - a lack of support. A feeling of alone-ness.

Not loneliness though. It was a feeling of having only myself to rely upon. That no-one else had the resources available to help me should I need it. It was an unsettling feeling.

And I wasn't sad per se, but this Mama was grateful for the change of scene nonetheless, and the chance to let that feeling sit without judgement or trying to change it.

So, as the girls played with their Noni and Pa and we viewed the wonderful exhibition of Monet's garden paintings, that feeling slowly changed and I began to feel a different part of me emerge. A stronger, clearer part of me. For it is through challenge and adversity that we learn and grow.

Our four days in Melbourne have now come to an end. And although we've said goodbye to family we're now back in our peaceful haven of Mount Beauty, surrounded by peaks dusted in the last of the Winter snows, the sun pouring into the valley and bike riders beginning to take over the roads again.

I think we all breathed a sigh of relaxed contentment as we settled back into out home and garden, together as a family again. It's nice to leave, but it nicer to come home again, richer for the experience and just a bit wiser too.

We love Monet

Here we are at the exhibition of paintings inspired by Monet's garden at NGV. So lovely, those impressions of light and colour. This Mama is even more inspired to get back home and into the garden...

The day that didn't happen

It was meant to be a day for me. To focus on a new direction for this blog. To pause and reflect. To dream and plan ahead...

A day for me. Just me.

But it became a day to look at a new car. And a day for me to be a Mama to our two girls. A day to work in the garden.

I felt frustration, yes. And I considered anger and self-pity for a while. But, really.

The sun was warm on our back as we played in the garden. The sourdough loaves filled our home with that delightful, yeasty smell. And Ian found the car we'd been looking for. For the right price. In the right location. And that means our trip around Australia next year is one step closer to being a reality.

And then Ian arrived home, flushed from his success in finding our dream car, and we eagerly worked together for the afternoon to complete the additions to our chicken's accommodation. Our two feathered girls, Henny Penny and Poppy, now joined by Pippy(2) and Sam (more on these beauties another time) can now roam in the sun all day long without disturbing any neighbours. They can scratch and dig and fossick as much as they like. And I can't tell you how happy this makes this Mama.

And then, after all this work in the garden the sun was still shining. So I asked myself and what of this day for me? Just me?

I'm thinking that maybe I got it. I got just what I wanted after all.

A week's inspiration on Father's Day

It's possibly the last ski of the season. On this Father's Day Ian has taken our two girls up for a kids cross country race and Bethany's first time on skis. Meanwhile I'm at work at the bakery...