Excuse me for disappearing. It's just something I do occasionally, apparently. I'm actually starting to think that it might be a sign that my priorities are well aligned and that I know when something needs to be put aside for the greater good. Or maybe I'm just socially inept. Both? Whatever.
I was going to wait until this was a bit more functional, but while I use my iPhone a bit, time spent on an actual computer is a bit hard to come by in my life right now, so progress might be slow and I'm itching to move things along, soooo... if you are inclined to drop by, tinsenpup has a new virtual home now at tinsenpup.net.
I'm hoping that a fresh space will give me the courage I need to do the new things I'd like to do with my writing. I'd love to see you there.
Saturday, 10 March 2012
Friday, 20 January 2012
Tickety-Boo
I keep starting blog posts that decide that they want to be about very big important topics that demand much explaining and context and several flashbacks as well as an earnest paragraph on my hopes for the future and then the entire story retold from the spoodle's point of view. I quickly come to realise that the post I'm working on is going to take FOREVER to obsessively craft, check, check again, check once more in preview mode, post, see a typo immediately after doing so, correct and post again, then check once more, just to make sure and then get a comment and have to immediately re-read the post to contextualise it, because it comes from a perspective I hadn't considered. So then I decide to avoid all that and come back to that post when it's not 11pm and start something else, a little lighter, that after a whimsical paragraph of introduction decides (much to my annoyance, I might add) that it too wants to be about a very big important topic and then I repeat the whole saga.
So I've been writing; just not posting, which I don't think counts. It might, however, depend how you answer that question about trees falling in the forest and nobody hearing. I've also been writing long posts and then deleting them without publishing them, which is also annoying since I'm really not so prolific that I can afford to be deleting my earnest outpourings. Mostly I've just been trying to write a simple little family update and you wouldn't think that it would be that difficult since things are really rather tickety-boo for us right now, but it is and I've already abandoned a post attempting to explain why tonight, so I'm steering well away from that. Instead, prepare to be shocked and amazed as I post "Three Things Too Boring to be in Posts by Themselves".
I wrote that post about G the other day, because I had been asking myself all day how I felt about his suicide. The answer was, 'Not much at all really, just a little odd.' But your comments really spoke to me. I know that I'm loving that shower curtain a little more every day. The following afternoon, I was hanging washing out, my mind jumping from thought to thought, when I felt the quiet around me telling me to slow down for just a moment and take a deep breathe and right then I felt something return to me, some little beloved part of myself that I didn't even realise I'd lost when I burned the bridge that led back in time to my unhappy life with G. Another circle closing.
Ni was working on her own drawings one day last week, so I took a few minutes to join her for the week's drawing session. She set me the assignment of drawing her little mascot, Cassie. Wawa participated by adding some colour to the finished artwork.
If this next item were interesting enough to warrant a post of its own, it would be called, 'How I Killed Christmas', but technically, it was just our sweet little Christmas tree that I murdered and the how isn't much of a mystery. I just forgot to water the poor thing the whole time it was inside being festive. Oops. Sorry little tree.
Hmmm... And now it's nearly 1am anyway. So much for avoiding a time-consuming post.
So I've been writing; just not posting, which I don't think counts. It might, however, depend how you answer that question about trees falling in the forest and nobody hearing. I've also been writing long posts and then deleting them without publishing them, which is also annoying since I'm really not so prolific that I can afford to be deleting my earnest outpourings. Mostly I've just been trying to write a simple little family update and you wouldn't think that it would be that difficult since things are really rather tickety-boo for us right now, but it is and I've already abandoned a post attempting to explain why tonight, so I'm steering well away from that. Instead, prepare to be shocked and amazed as I post "Three Things Too Boring to be in Posts by Themselves".
I wrote that post about G the other day, because I had been asking myself all day how I felt about his suicide. The answer was, 'Not much at all really, just a little odd.' But your comments really spoke to me. I know that I'm loving that shower curtain a little more every day. The following afternoon, I was hanging washing out, my mind jumping from thought to thought, when I felt the quiet around me telling me to slow down for just a moment and take a deep breathe and right then I felt something return to me, some little beloved part of myself that I didn't even realise I'd lost when I burned the bridge that led back in time to my unhappy life with G. Another circle closing.
Ni was working on her own drawings one day last week, so I took a few minutes to join her for the week's drawing session. She set me the assignment of drawing her little mascot, Cassie. Wawa participated by adding some colour to the finished artwork.
If this next item were interesting enough to warrant a post of its own, it would be called, 'How I Killed Christmas', but technically, it was just our sweet little Christmas tree that I murdered and the how isn't much of a mystery. I just forgot to water the poor thing the whole time it was inside being festive. Oops. Sorry little tree.
Hmmm... And now it's nearly 1am anyway. So much for avoiding a time-consuming post.
Tuesday, 17 January 2012
Not My Burden to Bear
They say the best revenge is living well. Theoretically speaking then, I've enjoyed tenfold any revenge I might ever have been destined to inflict.
When I was eighteen and nineteen, I lived with a man, G, who was twice my age. He was, in fact, the age that I am now. It's a perspective that offers me the opportunity to laugh wryly and shake my head. He was a very stunted man in more ways than one. He was also a fairly textbook abuser. He would say things like, "No one has ever made me this angry before," while pinning me to the bed. I really don't know if I believed him, even then. After all, he'd been through a divorce only a year or two before I met him. The fact that I was even with him is every bit of evidence you or I will ever need that I was a very damaged young woman when I turned my back on childhood.
G lived for sex and drugs and he would do just about anything to get them. From anyone. Anywhere. Any time. He lied and cheated everyone from strangers to his dearest friends. I believe he couldn't help it. He lied to get what he wanted and he lied when the truth would have served equally well. He would tell outright lies to people's faces and assume that I wouldn't out him. And I didn't. He would take mad risks constantly. For the most part, he made friends easily. It wasn't that he was particularly likeable, he just had a way of making you feel as if you'd always been mates. A stalwart of G's social circle once confided to me that he didn't trust G. He told me that before I'd met him, G had just turned up at the pub one day and blustered in as if he'd always been there. He became a more or less instant fixture in that little bar with its comorbid community of misfits. He was undeniably charming in his bullshit and bluster and people were always bizarrely reluctant to call him on it, even when it was utterly blatant. I was certainly no exception.
Obviously, I eventually left him, which is a story in itself, for another day perhaps - or perhaps not, since it's not a very pretty one. I don't remember ever seeing him again. It took me a long time to stop feeling vengeful towards G. Eventually, deeper hurts eclipsed him and though I will admit that I have kept scars as souvenirs from our time together, I really haven't given him more than a passing thought for several years.
Then in the wee hours of this morning, when I should have been sleeping, I unexpectedly stumbled upon his obituary online - two days before it expires and tumbles into the misty ether of whatever it is that bits of the Internet become once they cease to be. And there, between the scant lines of the obituary and the funeral notice and a few notices from mates, are those all too familiar hints; an effort to protect, belying a need to protect. And I'm not at all sad, because as harsh as I'm sure it sounds, I impassively believe that the world is a very slightly better place today, but I am a little shocked. I genuinely would have thought that his narcissism ran too deep for suicide. I guess there was more to him than I could parse at nineteen. It's been a long time and the way he lived his life cannot help but inflict damage, not just in a circle radiating outward, but in a spiral inward and downward.
So there's the flip side of my living well. The day that I was out with three people that I adore, paying too much for a shower curtain with butterflies on it, G was ending his life. It feels neither bitter nor sweet. It's simply not my burden to bear.
When I was eighteen and nineteen, I lived with a man, G, who was twice my age. He was, in fact, the age that I am now. It's a perspective that offers me the opportunity to laugh wryly and shake my head. He was a very stunted man in more ways than one. He was also a fairly textbook abuser. He would say things like, "No one has ever made me this angry before," while pinning me to the bed. I really don't know if I believed him, even then. After all, he'd been through a divorce only a year or two before I met him. The fact that I was even with him is every bit of evidence you or I will ever need that I was a very damaged young woman when I turned my back on childhood.
G lived for sex and drugs and he would do just about anything to get them. From anyone. Anywhere. Any time. He lied and cheated everyone from strangers to his dearest friends. I believe he couldn't help it. He lied to get what he wanted and he lied when the truth would have served equally well. He would tell outright lies to people's faces and assume that I wouldn't out him. And I didn't. He would take mad risks constantly. For the most part, he made friends easily. It wasn't that he was particularly likeable, he just had a way of making you feel as if you'd always been mates. A stalwart of G's social circle once confided to me that he didn't trust G. He told me that before I'd met him, G had just turned up at the pub one day and blustered in as if he'd always been there. He became a more or less instant fixture in that little bar with its comorbid community of misfits. He was undeniably charming in his bullshit and bluster and people were always bizarrely reluctant to call him on it, even when it was utterly blatant. I was certainly no exception.
Obviously, I eventually left him, which is a story in itself, for another day perhaps - or perhaps not, since it's not a very pretty one. I don't remember ever seeing him again. It took me a long time to stop feeling vengeful towards G. Eventually, deeper hurts eclipsed him and though I will admit that I have kept scars as souvenirs from our time together, I really haven't given him more than a passing thought for several years.
Then in the wee hours of this morning, when I should have been sleeping, I unexpectedly stumbled upon his obituary online - two days before it expires and tumbles into the misty ether of whatever it is that bits of the Internet become once they cease to be. And there, between the scant lines of the obituary and the funeral notice and a few notices from mates, are those all too familiar hints; an effort to protect, belying a need to protect. And I'm not at all sad, because as harsh as I'm sure it sounds, I impassively believe that the world is a very slightly better place today, but I am a little shocked. I genuinely would have thought that his narcissism ran too deep for suicide. I guess there was more to him than I could parse at nineteen. It's been a long time and the way he lived his life cannot help but inflict damage, not just in a circle radiating outward, but in a spiral inward and downward.
So there's the flip side of my living well. The day that I was out with three people that I adore, paying too much for a shower curtain with butterflies on it, G was ending his life. It feels neither bitter nor sweet. It's simply not my burden to bear.
Friday, 13 January 2012
{this moment} - Play
{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want pause, savor and remember. - Soulemama
Thursday, 12 January 2012
Life's Heart
"I can't sing," Doot says when I ask if he'd like to join in our circle for Wawa. He sees me move to interject. I don't even need to say, "Everyone can sing." We've rehearsed this one. "You're right, I should clarify," he adds quickly, "I can't sing WELL." "You're missing the point," I tell him. He's not convinced.
Make a joyful noise, I say. Write, sing, play an instrument or two or three, draw, paint, cook, sew, knit. Create. Laugh. Love. It's all the stuff of life. The molecules that form life's heart are full of chaotic noise and dropped stitches and a green crayon cat whose whiskers are so long they flow off the sides of the page. As a society, we are very good at letting children know, as they stand vulnerable on the cusp of adulthood, that if they don't show conventional talent in an area, they should desist or open themselves up to ridicule. You might just as well tell them to eat only foods that please their palates, those that offer instant gratification, at the expense of others that they need to nourish them.
My children and I belong to a homeschool choir. There are no very confident singers amongst the adults (all women), but my goodness we can make a beautiful noise when we all join our faltering voices together and sing from our hearts.
All this is my way of telling you that number 24 on my list of 52 habits is "Draw with Ni once a week." Both of my children are passionate artists. Wawa seemed born to it. Ni has grown into it a little more with every passing year. I, of course, am far too busy with important adult things like laundry and cutting up cardboard with a utility knife so that it will fit nicely in the recycling bin, except once a week, when I aim to draw with my children. Not because I am good at it, but because it is good for me.
Having admired traditional and modern Aboriginal artworks and artifacts at Bunjilaka at the Melbourne Museum, we searched online and found images of a diverse range of works identifying as Aboriginal art. We discussed what we saw; the colours, techniques that might have been used, what we liked about our favourites and what inspiration we might draw from them. The idea was not to emulate what we saw, but to see what response the works elicited in us.
Ni tried pointillism for this dibby (truck) that she drew for Wawa.
She developed her technique for this beautiful tree.
Wawa, influenced by her favourite artist (Ni) used the same technique for this drawing, along with some artfully rendered squiggles.
Mine is a rather flat-looking, but likeable echidna.
Doot politely declined to participate. :)
Make a joyful noise, I say. Write, sing, play an instrument or two or three, draw, paint, cook, sew, knit. Create. Laugh. Love. It's all the stuff of life. The molecules that form life's heart are full of chaotic noise and dropped stitches and a green crayon cat whose whiskers are so long they flow off the sides of the page. As a society, we are very good at letting children know, as they stand vulnerable on the cusp of adulthood, that if they don't show conventional talent in an area, they should desist or open themselves up to ridicule. You might just as well tell them to eat only foods that please their palates, those that offer instant gratification, at the expense of others that they need to nourish them.
My children and I belong to a homeschool choir. There are no very confident singers amongst the adults (all women), but my goodness we can make a beautiful noise when we all join our faltering voices together and sing from our hearts.
All this is my way of telling you that number 24 on my list of 52 habits is "Draw with Ni once a week." Both of my children are passionate artists. Wawa seemed born to it. Ni has grown into it a little more with every passing year. I, of course, am far too busy with important adult things like laundry and cutting up cardboard with a utility knife so that it will fit nicely in the recycling bin, except once a week, when I aim to draw with my children. Not because I am good at it, but because it is good for me.
Having admired traditional and modern Aboriginal artworks and artifacts at Bunjilaka at the Melbourne Museum, we searched online and found images of a diverse range of works identifying as Aboriginal art. We discussed what we saw; the colours, techniques that might have been used, what we liked about our favourites and what inspiration we might draw from them. The idea was not to emulate what we saw, but to see what response the works elicited in us.
Ni tried pointillism for this dibby (truck) that she drew for Wawa.
She developed her technique for this beautiful tree.
Wawa, influenced by her favourite artist (Ni) used the same technique for this drawing, along with some artfully rendered squiggles.
Mine is a rather flat-looking, but likeable echidna.
Doot politely declined to participate. :)
Tuesday, 10 January 2012
Found Poetry
I like the idea of found art. It's all about stripping an object of its context and assigning it a new arbitrary value and thus a fresh context. It doesn't matter if an object was rubbish lying in the street an hour ago; look at it in a different light (from a different perspective) and who knows what you will see? That's one of the reasons I like shopping in second hand stores. There's less bias on my part; an item is more likely to stand on its own merits rather than brand, price or the store it's sold in. 'Cool' becomes a product of my own mind rather than marketing.
Sorting out my very cluttered, disorganised data is on my 52 habits in 52 weeks list. I'm working away at it a little every day (habitually, you might say). I'm making progress (or so I keep telling myself). On my new phone, filed under the category of 'Weird Stuff I Keep', I have an SMS message synced from my old phone that I received mistakenly from a complete stranger in late 2009. It reads like beat poetry. It is so beautiful and poignant and strong and tells an old old tale. I know I've been there. I present it for you today as a guest post of sorts. Superbly practical syntax and spelling is preserved from the original, but I'm going to insert some spaces to make it easier to read.
Well it all went down the drain pritti quik.
All coza drugs.
U neva listened 2 me
its like inside i was screaming
but outside i cudnt speak.
Did u evn care about me at all at the end of it
coz it sure didnt feel like it,
all u cared about was jus takin off n gtn fried
n ditchn me
n goin 2 da beach witout me.
id hav 2 beg u jus to spend a minute with me
ud make me wait 4 hrs n neva evn show up 2 things we had 2 do
lyk lookn at houses.
U put evryone and evrything b4 me
id had enuff.
way enuff.
Thats y that nyt u fukd off
and left me at aron n tash's
sed u left 4 wrk wit silvo n paulie at like 4am
n sed ud b bak at like midday latest.
i waited all that afternoon thru to the nite
til afta midnyt
n thats wen i fukd off took my shit n left
coz u promised me ud b bak
n u wernt
yet silvo n paul came bak at lyk 11
n u wernt wit em,
sed u wer drinkn wit daz
but i knew tht wuda bin a lie
coz at that point u owed him money.
So yeahh.
And that ws da end of us
So is it just me, or is there raw poetry in that?
Dust Bunny With Grass - January 2012
Sorting out my very cluttered, disorganised data is on my 52 habits in 52 weeks list. I'm working away at it a little every day (habitually, you might say). I'm making progress (or so I keep telling myself). On my new phone, filed under the category of 'Weird Stuff I Keep', I have an SMS message synced from my old phone that I received mistakenly from a complete stranger in late 2009. It reads like beat poetry. It is so beautiful and poignant and strong and tells an old old tale. I know I've been there. I present it for you today as a guest post of sorts. Superbly practical syntax and spelling is preserved from the original, but I'm going to insert some spaces to make it easier to read.
Well it all went down the drain pritti quik.
All coza drugs.
U neva listened 2 me
its like inside i was screaming
but outside i cudnt speak.
Did u evn care about me at all at the end of it
coz it sure didnt feel like it,
all u cared about was jus takin off n gtn fried
n ditchn me
n goin 2 da beach witout me.
id hav 2 beg u jus to spend a minute with me
ud make me wait 4 hrs n neva evn show up 2 things we had 2 do
lyk lookn at houses.
U put evryone and evrything b4 me
id had enuff.
way enuff.
Thats y that nyt u fukd off
and left me at aron n tash's
sed u left 4 wrk wit silvo n paulie at like 4am
n sed ud b bak at like midday latest.
i waited all that afternoon thru to the nite
til afta midnyt
n thats wen i fukd off took my shit n left
coz u promised me ud b bak
n u wernt
yet silvo n paul came bak at lyk 11
n u wernt wit em,
sed u wer drinkn wit daz
but i knew tht wuda bin a lie
coz at that point u owed him money.
So yeahh.
And that ws da end of us
So is it just me, or is there raw poetry in that?
Sunday, 8 January 2012
I Phone
After much wailing and gnashing of teeth, along with curse words muttered a little too audibly under my breath, I seem to have found a workaround for my photo problem and thus I present number seventeen on the 52 in 52 list; 'Get a new iPhone'. We kind of cheated on this one, since we were planning to save up like the clever, responsible creatures we are and buy one outright to use with a pre-paid SIM. Instead, after spending all of our money on boring rent and bills and food month after month after month (yawn), and since I'd been without a phone all that time, we decided to get one on a post-paid contract, which is a little nerve-wracking given that Doot will be studying (and working) again this year, so we know we have another lean year ahead. Thankfully I now have a shiny new iPhone to console me and keep me warm through the dark days. It should also be noted that cheating and the creative revision of goals is encouraged in this endeavour (the one I like to call 'life'). 'Realistic' and 'practical' are like mantras around here (along with 'Don't throw that!' and 'What's that brown thing on the floor?').
Incidentally, I also bought that mirror last week (it was a cheap one from Aldi), which is not the most thrilling news, I know (especially since it doesn't appear on any lists anywhere...sigh...), but that's the first full length mirror I've owned since Ni was a baby and I had one turned on its side for her enjoyment. For years my subtle self talk went along the lines of, 'If you buy a mirror, that means that you want to look at yourself, which in turn implies that you think you're worth looking at and then people will laugh at you and your delusion.' And obviously when you write it out like that and prop it up on a solid frame of words, it seems ridiculous, but when it's just a little grey worm whispering away in your mind, that has been there whispering away forever and ever, it's just one of a seemingly infinite number of things that you have to learn, with some effort, to question. If I did not have a toddler leaving her sweet little baby body behind for a more advanced model and a big girl on the cusp of the amazing process of growing into her womanhood, I'd probably still be squinting at myself in the shaving mirror in the bathroom.
Then, of course, there's the fraught question of what I actually see (or don't see) when I look in that mirror. That's a whole other blog post, I think. And we'd better just skip right over the shame and embarrassment that has to be overcome in order to even take a photo of myself, let alone stick it up on the Internet. Eeep!
I know that most of us have to recover from our childhoods and the failings of the adults in our lives at some point, but I desperately hope that I'm paving an easier road for my daughters.
Here's a photo of Lyra and I playing Extreme Incy Wincy.
I'm not sure what the rules are, but they seem to involve singing the song then attacking your mama with the giant plastic spider you got from the museum (that you like far better than the lovely white and purple agate that mama bought for you).
No doubt you'll be subjected to my burgeoning love affair with the iPhone 4S' wonderful camera (with a little added enhancement for the above photo). I probably shouldn't have clicked over to Photojojo for that link, since I found this and am now wondering how much we could get for the spoodle and the children's toys on eBay.
Incidentally, I also bought that mirror last week (it was a cheap one from Aldi), which is not the most thrilling news, I know (especially since it doesn't appear on any lists anywhere...sigh...), but that's the first full length mirror I've owned since Ni was a baby and I had one turned on its side for her enjoyment. For years my subtle self talk went along the lines of, 'If you buy a mirror, that means that you want to look at yourself, which in turn implies that you think you're worth looking at and then people will laugh at you and your delusion.' And obviously when you write it out like that and prop it up on a solid frame of words, it seems ridiculous, but when it's just a little grey worm whispering away in your mind, that has been there whispering away forever and ever, it's just one of a seemingly infinite number of things that you have to learn, with some effort, to question. If I did not have a toddler leaving her sweet little baby body behind for a more advanced model and a big girl on the cusp of the amazing process of growing into her womanhood, I'd probably still be squinting at myself in the shaving mirror in the bathroom.
Then, of course, there's the fraught question of what I actually see (or don't see) when I look in that mirror. That's a whole other blog post, I think. And we'd better just skip right over the shame and embarrassment that has to be overcome in order to even take a photo of myself, let alone stick it up on the Internet. Eeep!
I know that most of us have to recover from our childhoods and the failings of the adults in our lives at some point, but I desperately hope that I'm paving an easier road for my daughters.
Here's a photo of Lyra and I playing Extreme Incy Wincy.
I'm not sure what the rules are, but they seem to involve singing the song then attacking your mama with the giant plastic spider you got from the museum (that you like far better than the lovely white and purple agate that mama bought for you).
No doubt you'll be subjected to my burgeoning love affair with the iPhone 4S' wonderful camera (with a little added enhancement for the above photo). I probably shouldn't have clicked over to Photojojo for that link, since I found this and am now wondering how much we could get for the spoodle and the children's toys on eBay.
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