Friday

Week ending... just because.

Menu planning/grocery list.

These toes.

 Tonight's chore.

Today's painting.

Pondering patterns and fabric.

And my standard IKEA haul.  Vanilla candles, spice jars, biscuits and chunky pencils.

Thursday again

Officially Spring!  Although in Canberra tradition there will still be some cold days yet.
I find since having children Winter goes a little too long.
I am looking forward to clearing our deck,and spending many afternoons/evenings outside.  Kids can play and we will cook dinner on the bbq.

With winter passing, and many weeks without posting, I find I have missed recording TWO significant evens in our home.  Nicholas turned 11 in July, and Maggie recently had her third birthday! 
Her excitement and awareness of having a party that was all about her brought everyone joy!!

Thursday

I am reading a book I had heard quite a bit about, and so suggested it for my book club.  Louise Erdrich is a well known First Nations author of 14 books.  I have already looked at two more of her books I would like to read, even though I am only 70 pages into her most recent novel, La Rose.  The book opens with the story of a man, Landreaux,  hunting deer.  It is 1999, and known to be a fine marksman he fires a shot but the deer flees.  He walks over to see what he has hit and finds that he has killed his friends 5 year old son, who had been in the woods playing.

I am particularly interested in Erdrich’s writing of how the traditional and contemporary lives combine.  After speaking with police and the priest the man enters a sweat lodge.  He leaves after some time feeling that he needs to provide restorative justice.  He and his wife take their own 5 year old son, pack his bag and walk to their friends house.  They give their son to them, saying he “is now your son”.  This is the opening chapter.

There are a number of moving passages about how the family who gave up their child are coping with their decision.  Beautiful parts describing how La Rose becomes accustomed to living with his new family and thinks of his parents.  His mother had hoped that she would still see La Rose.  She makes his favourite soup and brings it to the house.

"Inside the house La Rose heard his mother's voice and knew the smell of that soup which he wouldn't taste.  Nola just kept reading Where the Wild Things Are over and over, until the knocking went away.  Nola's voice was hoarse and thin.

And it was still hot, Nola said, and closed the book.  Shall I read it again?

Okay, said La Rose in a tiny voice.  A fuzzy wash of draining saddness covered him.  He closed his eyes and fell asleep"

The story has only begun and there are a number of other characters in the two families whose stories are yet to develop.

  

I remember when I spent 5 months in the United States (I think 1995 or 1996??) I went to the Cherokee reservation.  There was a man standing outside a tent, with feathers.  I did not want to have my photograph taken with him.  To me it would be disrespectful, embarrassing.  I talked with him a while.  He told me that the Cherokee did not dress how he was dressed.  They did not live in the tepee style tent he was standing in front of.  But he said this was what people expected to see.  I felt it was degrading to the culture of these strong people.

From that trip I have a handful of arrowheads that I was given by friends I stayed with.  It has always been my intention to have them framed.  Lunch, now some years ago,  with my former university Archaeology lecturer and he advised me of the best way to frame them.  One broken arrowhead I had picked up from the river myself.  I still feel amazed, remembering sitting by the creek and seeingthe broken piece of rock lying in the water.  How long had it been there? Who had walked by that creek before me?  

My first university studies, and what I will always consider my degree of passion, focused on Indigenous cultures and their materials.  Even some of the work I have done over the past few years has given me some understanding of the complexities in straddling two cultures.  

Sunday

 

When we attend to the moment, the weight of our attention slows time down and we see we have been given gifts. Ann Voskamp

Thursday

This week I was sent two pictures of my paternal great-grandmother.  The first photograph is said to be taken when she was 16.  Phyllis May Brill was born on 11 December 1893.  She died when I was three.  I have spent a lot of time years ago researching family history, but won't delve into all of that now.  

I love the photographs.  Her clothes, the Edwardian jewellery.

Phyllis' story intrigues me.  We are told her parents were William and Rachel Brill.  Her marriage certificate states this.  Her birth certificate however, lists her mother as Maria Brill, father unknown.  Charlotte Maria Brill (known as "Ria") was born in 1870, she was the daughter of William and Rachel Brill.  This makes her 23 when Phyllis was born.  I don't imagine it was ever hidden that Maria was Phyllis' mother.  I look at other photographs that I have seen of Phyllis in local history books.  One taken of her primary school class.  Another photograph of the family, all seated/standing formally in front of the family home.  I see Maria, standing at the opposite side of the group to Phyllis.  What was it like growing up with a younger sister, knowing she was in fact your daughter?  Did they do a lot together when growing up - with 23 years between them?  Did they see each other often in their old age?  

I also think of William and Rachel, staunch Methodists, in the family photograph the bible placed on Rachel's lap.  I like that they supported their daughter and took Phyllis in, raising her as their own.  There is one part of Phyllis' story though which is lost and will never be known.  Who her father was. 
Truth is, in any family tree there will be birth certificates that state "father unknown".  

I once sat with my grandmother and her sister in a rare moment where they talked about family history.  Nan's sister said that their dad did not like my grandfather, as he was Aboriginal.  Of course my dad does not look Indigenous, and neither does his dad.  But does that mean that Phyllis' father wasn't?

 

 (Herbert George Ceely and Phyllis May Brill)

As I pulled out dust covered boxes of papers and newspaper articles, I read through emails I received from a writer, who occasionally teaches night classes at the ANU on writing family history and writing the women's stories.  That is something I would love to do- write about all the women in my family, as I see all of them as strong women.  Living throughout various times, literally building homes in the bush from nothing.  One day maybe I will collate the photographs and the stories that have been passed down.  While the truth can only be alluded to, the stories are far more interesting that two dates on a headstone.

Wednesday

"Never since they were small children had they clustered about her so, and never since then had she been so aware of the smell of their hair, their softness, breathiness, abruptness.  It filled her with a strange elation, the same pleasure she had felt when any one of them, as a sucking child, had fastened her eyes on her face and reached for her other breast, her hair, her lips, hungry to touch, eager to be filled for a while and sleep."

~ Housekeeping (Marilynne Robinson)

Monday

 

I watch Maggie.  I want to remember everything.  

For a while now she has insisted on being the one to say grace before our meals.  Initially it was “Jesus name, Amen!”.  Now other words pepper her prayer.  Food, Nan, toys, pop and gran.  

At night she insists on a story.  Although I know it is a delaying tactic, I never say no to reading her a story.  A love for reading is something I have actively tried to instil in each of my kids, and I value the opportunity to read through old favourites again, being able to see the joy captured in another child.

Maggie hugs her favourite doll, saying “shhhh” and rocking her.  Then she brings her to me and asks me to look after the doll (named Petal) as she has to go to work.  She puts a bag on her shoulder and blows a kiss, saying “luff you” as she walks away. I don’t know whether I find this endearing, or whether it makes me a little sad that it is routine for her.  

She picks up anything and pretends to talk on the phone, having very considered conversations, saying “uh huh” and nodding and pausing for periods as she “listens” to the voice on the other end.

I watch her and I want to bathe in the moment.  I look at Nicholas and Audrey and I see how quickly time goes.