They Had Sex

Well, it's been quite a journey, and here we are: 12 weeks pregnant and ready to share the news.

I remember when I was younger seeing pregnant women and wondering how they could just go about their business in public and not be too embarrassed that their big bellies announced to the world that THEY HAD SEX to get where they were.

If you see me waddling down the street in the next six months, know that it wasn't just PJ and I getting it on that led to where we are. Since my miscarriage we have had dozens of helpers.

Cards, juicy ripe fruit, positive affirmations, vitamins, notes and books left on our doorstep, gifts of foot massages and healing crystals, offers to do my grocery shopping, emails and text messages of love, lifts to places when I was too tired to walk or bike, and from Z's mum, a voucher for three sessions with her chinese doctor.

There was once a time that I saw stepparenting as the more communal act, but now I see how communal an effort pregnancy is too.

Five

Happy anniversary PJ and Z!

Here's to many more years of making silliness together.

Vaginal Corona

When I was 18 I went out with a guy named Ben. It was our first year out of high school, we were overseas together and we were in love. One warm night we were so in love we decided to bequeath our virginities to one another.

Afterwards Ben said he was surprised that I hadn't bled. I mumbled something about horse riding, tampons and masturbation, then I fell asleep.

Fast forward 18 years to a few days ago when I web surfed my way to a pdf booklet put out by RFSU (the Swedish organisation for sexual enlightenment), which starts like this:

Known by the established term "hymen," the vaginal corona is the subject of many myths and misunderstandings. The most important of these is the notion that a woman’s vaginal opening is covered by a membrane that ruptures on penetration. This is incorrect. There is no such membrane. RFSU wishes to dispel the myths and promote knowledge of the true facts. In this booklet, we aim to give you a more accurate idea of what you will find just inside the vaginal opening of every woman.

Holy popped cherries, batgirl! My entire life I thought I had a hymen, and that somewhere along the line between being born and meeting Ben, this precious proof of purity was disturbed.

Between clitoris and labia in my Cambridge Illustrated Thesaurus of Biology is the listing for hymen:

Thin membrane partially closing the vagina in a virgin woman. It is ruptured when coitus first occurs.

Ha! One more myth of the patriarchy debunked. I wonder if there's a word for the membrane that seals a closed mind.

Four

PJ, Z and I celebrated our four year anniversary yesterday.

I was at work, and halfway through the afternoon I received this photo from PJ:

I called to giggle my gratitude, and casually mentioned that he in fact had a thought bubble coming out of his mouth.

Five minutes later, this arrived:

Four magical years, indeed.

Happy anniversary, boys! I wouldn't want to share this odyssey with anybody else.

Rednesday: Aprons

It's my grandmother's birthday today. The last photo I had taken with her before she died is this one, snapped at her birthday party last year by my sister Abby. She died a month later.

Chapter eight of the book my mum wrote about her experience of my grandmother's Alzheimer's starts with this paragraph:

My mother had been a balabosta, a Yiddish term for a person who raises housekeeping to the level of an Olympic sport. In her spotless kitchen, the balabosta cooks gourmet feasts for her family, and when they have finished eating first, second and third helpings, she insists they take leftovers home with them. All this she does week after week, apparently without effort, while wearing lipstick, French perfume, and an apron over her good clothes.

Even on my most house-proud of days, I could never hope to be as good a housekeeper as my grandmother was. But I do like to pretend I am a little like her when it's my turn to do the cooking and I skip from the oven to the table. I can't attribute my lack of cooking prowess to her, but I most definitely hold her accountable for my love of aprons.

(The last one reads: I cook in the kitchen, but I boil in the bedroom.)

Sharing Food

It's my niece Indigo's 9th birthday today and to celebrate she had some friends over for a slumber party last night. I went over to hang out with them for a while. What a great age 9 is — so mature yet still so gorgeously unselfconscious.

For dinner they each dressed half a homemade pizza base with their favourite toppings. Unfortunately I couldn't stick around for the eating as I had my own dinner to get home to.

It was my turn to cook, and on the way home from the party I was busy planning what I was going to make. But it turned out all I made were ooh and aah sounds as PJ had surprised me with this delicious home grown, home caught, home cooked meal.

The greens are all from our garden — silverbeet, spinach, broccoli, snow peas, sugar snap peas, spring onion, spearmint, wild rocket, broad bean leaves, oregano and parsley. The Redfin (English Perch) was caught by yours truly in the local lake the day before, and the lemon was gifted by some friends.

I like what David Graeber says in his book Possibilities:

Sexual relations, after all, need not be represented as a matter of one partner consuming the other; they can also be imagined as two people sharing food.

Book Launch

If you are in Melbourne tonight, why not come along to the launch of my mum's book, Alzheimer's: A Love Story.

It's at Readings in Carlton (309 Lygon Street) at 6:30pm.

The book is about my grandparents' (above) love for one another, from when they met over six decades ago to when my grandmother died from Alzheimer's earlier this year.

Just in case my mum's signing pen runs out, you'd better bring your own.

Hope to see you there!

Together

In Newcastle

We each bought a pair of old sunglasses.

Wearing them, we fell in love with the world,

wherever we went,

and with everyone we met,

be they human or non-human.

We fell in love with the ways of the natural world,

our small place within it,

and with one another.

We fell in love with all we have

and with all that is to come.

We don't know what's next.

But we look forward to finding out.

A Pile of Shit

There's a horse riding ranch two minutes away, where I used to go riding as a kid, and where Z had his birthday party a few years back. PJ and I drove out there first thing this morning.

'Is it OK if we collect some of your poo?' I asked one of the owners when we arrived.

'You can't collect mine, but you can collect the horses',' he told me, straight-faced.

And so we got to shovellin'. It was cold out and the shit was hot and steaming, and filled with worms our chickens dined on each of the three times we returned home with a car-load.

I've never been a red roses kinda gal and I've never been one for posed photos in a nice frame up on the mantle from holidays gone by. But I would never have described shovelling shit as a romantic pastime until today either.

But boy was it! The cool air, the steaming dung, no-one in the field except my beloved and I, working hard side-by-side to move the fecund waste so it can turn our clay earth into rich soil to grow good food for our family.

Dinner and movie? Chocolates in the shape of a heart? Give me a shovel, my man and a pile of shit any day.

Stack

Happy Father's Day!

I Heart Michelle

OK, so the background of this story goes something like this: In December last year, on one of the blogs I read it said that if you leave your postal addresses as a comment, they would send you a love letter, no matter where in the world you live. And so I did.

A few weeks later my love letter arrived and I felt good about it for weeks. And then a few months later another love letter arrived and I felt just as great about that one too.

And now, a few months after the last one, another letter has arrived.

"Have a cup of tea and read an old dusty book that smells like the past," writes the sender, Michelle.

Who am I to argue??

Booba's Butterflies

We went to the cemetery yesterday where my grandmother's family and friends gathered to consecrate the headstone that has now been erected at her grave. It is a double one, with her details on one side and the other left blank for my grandfather. I asked him how this made him feel, seeing it there, waiting for him. He said, had he seen it 20 years ago it would have made him feel worried, but now when he looks at it he feels ready. He said he's not wanting to die, but he's ready to lie next to my grandmother for ever.

Our grandmother loved butterflies. They were her trademark; butterfly stickers on our birthday card envelopes and butterflies on the place-cards she used at big family functions so we'd all know where to sit.

You might already know this, but it's tradition to place a stone on a jewish grave, as it indicates longevity and doesn't wither, as flowers do. My sister Kate had the idea to give each of the great grand-children a white tile for them to paint a butterfly on to leave on the grave. Z was going to be at his mum's on the day of the painting, so he drew it a few days earlier and Kate copied it onto a tile. Kate, you did such a great job!

And so did your girls. Booba would would have loved them.

Equal Love

Photo

Yesterday was the National Day of Action for Same-Sex Marriage, which culminated in 150 couples getting illegally wed outside the Australian Labour Party National Conference in Sydney.

I am ashamed of the Australian government's policies on many issues, but I am especially regretful of its refusal to budge on its homophobic Christian stance on gay marriage and same sex civil unions.

Have you seen that video that's doing the rounds at the moment of the couple and their bridal party dancing down the aisle? It's oh so cheesy, but I must admit that I have clicked replay on it more than once. There's something really lovely and liberated about the way the bride dances down on her own; no man to give her away, she's doing it on her on terms. My one wish for that couple is my one wish for all couples: that their love and commitment to one another be mightier than all the statistics stacked against them, and more honourable than our policy makers are.

91 Years

We celebrated my grandfather's 91st birthday today with a lunch in Melbourne in his honour. It was a small party – just his grandchildren, partners and great-grandchildren. It was such a nice afternoon.

Check out the ice-cream cake! It had a photo of our whole family printed on it in icing. I dread to think of what the ink was made from, but I'm still alive to tell the tale.

One of the highlights of the day was hearing Z say, 'Meg, you're delicious!' as he gobbled up my icing head.

Another highlight was watching my niece Pepper tracing her great-grandfather's hand. The outline of a life well lived. The baton of providence passed on.

Co-cane

Happy third anniversary, PJ!

I love growing older with you.

From here.

The P's Knees

It's been nearly a month since PJ cut his leg with his chainsaw. It has been healing beautifully, though on Sunday evening when Z and I returned from Melbourne, he could barely walk. His kneecap was all swollen and inflamed.

He had to spend last night in the local hospital where they fed him antibiotics intravenously. At dinnertime, Z and I brought in a thermos of chicken soup and an apple cake, which Z decorated with birthday candles. It's not PJ's birthday for another couple of months, but I don't think he cared.

J-Dog

My sister Emily's boyfriend, J-Dog is 30 today.

Not only is he great for Emily, but he is great for our whole family and great for you too if you happen to meet him one day.

He is remarkably thoughtful and funny and oh so lovely. Last year he did an impromptu act for one of our nieces at her birthday party, he sent us a thank you card after he stayed with us, and he makes breakfast in bed for Emily most weekends.

Happy birthday, Jono!!

We think you're just tops.

xx

Dear PJ's Parents,

Thank you so much for the dinner voucher you sent me for Stepmother's Day. I used it last night and shard a delicious meal with PJ. We felt so privileged to be eating so extravagantly and appreciated every mouthful.

As we were leaving the restaurant we chatted to a woman we know who works there. Knowing that I had a voucher she asked if it was my birthday. She looked stunned when I told her why I had received it and from whom.

She too is a stepmother, but unlike me, she was not recognised or acknowledged on Mother's Day. Not by her stepkids, because they don't want their mum to think they align themselves with her, not by her partner who takes for granted everything she does for his kids, and not by herself, because she didn't know she was entitled to.

Thank you for acknowledging my role. As the new partner, I have insecurities about Z's feelings towards me; that he, as well as everyone else will forever compare me to his birth mum, PJ's ex-wife, your ex-daughter-in-law.

All anyone wants is to be seen and accepted as themselves. The thoughtfulness of your gift made me realise that I am.

Much love to you both from me at the kitchen table,

Meg