Oh The Places You'll Go!

After yesterday's post on one of the most awful days I've had in a while, I have been searching all my experience and knowledge of myself and of the world, trying to find where I am going wrong.  Because surely life should not be like this.  And then, thanks to a friend, I found this little gift on youtube - a magical and unique telling of my family's absolute favourite Dr Seuss book "Oh The Places You'll Go".  I do believe I could watch this every morning of the year and still be inspired by it.

It reminds me that life can be great, that amazing things can happen and just as importantly, that we all go through slumps and that, as the great man says "When you're in a slump you're not in for much fun and unslumping yourself is not easily done".  So self -forgiveness is all important and therefore I am turning down the volume on that voice in my head that is telling me I am doing things wrong and I am tuning out, for a while, to a whole heap of voices from the media, the internet and from the fickle world of facebook that purport to provide self-help advice, when in fact self-promotion may better describe their motivation, and I am tuning in to my family, my self, (the one that really does know what is best for me) and letting in a big dose of self-forgiveness for messing up today and an even bigger dose of self-love so I can be more on track to getting things right tomorrow.

Full credit to 'Spirit Tokens of the Ling Qi Jing.  It has never let me down in times of need.

A call to craft from Amber.

Today had just been one of those really crappy days when things go wrong.  I had not slept well last night, laying awake trying to work out why a singing project I had been trying to get going for the local home-schooling community wasn't working out so was already tired and irritable.  We had a paediatric appointment for Marta which we were running a little late for but could still just have snuck in on time if the car hadn't broken down on the way.  So I decided we could walk the rest of the way.  I had the four children with me but I figured that it wasn't that far, I had the pram in the boot for Marta and yes, we really would be late but we might still be able to get in.  But the children had been picking up on my mood of irritation and distraction all morning and were in no mood for this.  Plus Jovanka had worn a pair of shoes which are fine to play in but not good for walking, especially when that walking has to be done quickly.  So her shoes kept slipping off which was making her really cross and she ended up standing in the street crying because it was all just too much.  At that point it all just got too much for me as well.  I turned the pram around announcing that we would be going home.  I am sure that the man walking past with his dog saw the dark storm cloud hanging directly over my head.  We marched back to the car, I was able to at least start it and we crawled home at 10km/h with the children under strict orders to say nothing.  Not my finest hour.

A little later that day I had to tip out a full 2 litre carton of milk because it was off although it was still well within it's use by date, so we had no milk.  That's a big deal at our house because no milk means no cups of tea and that is not good.  The gnocchi I made for dinner disintegrated into mush when I cooked it, for the third time in a row.  I am no gnocchi novice.  I have cooked dozens of batches successfully but for the last few months it has been touch and go.  I don't know if I've lost the touch or if potatoes are just not what they used to be.  Okay, so it's probably me.  Anyway, that left us without dinner so quickly cooked up some pasta to go with the napoli sauce that was supposed to go with the gnocchi.  To add to this, I found that I was noticing every bit of mess as I walked through the house, and there is a considerable amount and I can turn a blind eye to most of it pretty well most days but today was not going to be one of those days.  A book arrived in the mail - a lovely book about organising oneself so that one can be a better and happier parent.  Do you think I could organise any time to sit and read it?   Short answer, No.  Long answer, Nooooooooo.  How can I get organised if I can't even organise some time to sit and read the book that will give me the magic answer?  Okay, I know there will not be a magic answer in this book but I like to pretend that there will be.  It gives me hope for a short time at least.  In the background of this day, imagine a soundtrack of two constantly squabbling boys who could not seem to get along but could not go their own ways, although the suggestion was made to them several times.  Yep.  Crappy day.  And it all came down to my mood which I just did not have the energy to try and turn around into a positive one.

And then (thankfully there was an "and then" otherwise who knows where the day might have ended up)  I read this post by Amber at Mama Moontime and quite suddenly my outlook changed.  Amber is calling for contributions of small hand-crafted gifts to make up an advent calender for her 3 year old niece who was recently diagnosed with leukemia, and for her brother and sister.  Any gifts received in excess of what is required for the advent calender will go to children at the Sydney Children's Hospital. There is more to it than this.  Amber has put a great deal of thought and imagination into the organising of it all so please, if you are interested, have a look at her blog for more details.   I have put my name down and hope that you might also be inspired to do so.  I hope she receives thousands of pledges of little gifts.  She has already given me a great gift today and that is one of perspective.

Yes, lots of things went wrong in my day and yes, we were all in a pretty lousy mood for a lot of the time but do you know what?  My little girl Marta, who has just turned one is starting to walk and today, she took 10 unsteady little steps that got her about a metre across the floor.  That's not much for us but for her it was one metre closer to her Mama which is where she wanted to be.  I had not been paying attention to how big a step that is for her because I had been so caught up in my own head.  Then this afternoon we all went for a walk along the street to a neighbours house where there is an amazing mulberry tree overhanging the front gate, inviting passers-by to feast, and feast we did.  While we were there, another family who live nearby were just pulling into their driveway and wandered down for a chat.  We hadn't seen them for ages.  In fact, they'd not even met Marta  and we had not met their 18 month old son (yes it had been too long) so it was a real treat to stop for a while and catch up on news while my children ran around on the nature strip with her children and we make plans to get together again soon.  It had been such a pleasant few moments but I later put the memory of that pleasure to one side so I could continue to dwell on the negative thoughts in my head.
Reading Amber's post just put my day into perspective.

So thanks Amber for a kick in the pants reminder to think of others and be thankful for what we have.  May your days be blessed.

What The BBT????!!!!!!!

I am one of those people who generally sees the validity in both sides of an argument.  Call me a fence sitter if you will.  Perhaps it comes from having spent my teenage years passionately arguing points of politics, religion and society with my father, a.k.a. the devils' advocate.  Well, I called it arguing.  Dad called it debating.  It was probably a fair bit of both.

In the middle of a quiet evening he would bait the hook with a wriggly and tastily controversial worm - a comment which he knew would ignite a spark in my idealist mind.  The communists / refugees / unemployed / Catholics / married women in the workforce.....   He had a whole string of them and he knew I couldn't resist the bait.  The worm taken, he would slowly begin to reel me in.

At about this point, those of my family less comfortable with confrontation would quickly and quietly leave the room.  Then it was on.  The wrangling, the tousling, the search for that one point that would convince him that he was being narrow-minded; that he was wrong and I was right.  The best we could ever really hope for was a truce.  Agree to disagree.  If we could.  At worst it ended with us not talking to each other for a couple of hours afterwards.

The absolute beauty of it was that it was a chance for both of us to explore the issues of the time and to find our way to our own truths, to what we could really believe in.  He was arguing the beliefs he had been brought up with and taught not to question.  In his fifties, he had the freedom to question and the help of an opinionated teenage daughter to argue / debate it all with.  A child of the 1930's, he was raised to fear the 'other'; the Commos, the Micks, the foreigners.  He could have become a narrow- minded bigot but he chose to explore the ideas and beliefs he had grown up with, pulling them apart to see what truth there was to them.  And lucky me.  I got to go along on the ride, my bag packed with youthful idealism and in need of a good dose of reality.  Together we fought through so many issues.  Ultimately it was a fight towards open-mindedness and acceptance.  Towards finding the validity in both sides of the argument.

These days, I get a fair bit of flack from a good friend who sees me so often weighing up both sides, looking for the balance.  He calls it the Blair Balance Theory.  Sounds good to me.
Thanks Dad.  Thanks Risto.