I Thee Red

This is the table we sat around last night to help our friends J and L celebrate their commitment to each other. They were married several months ago in New York and last night we hosted a party for some of their Australian friends and family.

Dinner for 10 then others joined us for cake and hours of dancing. A fabulous night! - If this hangover is anything to go by.

Four Out of Four

Whenever I meet people I don't know there are several things I am quick to tell them that I feel go some way in explaining who I am.

The first of these is that I am one of four sisters. So important do I think this fact is, that I even mention it on my résumé. It shapes the way I communicate, the way I experience the world, my style, my self as a woman and most definitely my sense of play and joy in the everyday, and the every night; most recently last night.

My sister E came to town with her guitar and played as support to Justin Townes Earle. It was one of the best nights I have had in ages: the combination of E's clear, quiet grace and Justin's Fuck You punk-country generosity.

Several months ago I blogged about Paul Auster's introduction to a book about the high wire artist Philippe Petit. In it Auster says: "Each time we see a man walk on the wire, a part of us is up there with him." This is how I feel about my sisters.

Their triumphs are mine, their worries are mine, their pre-performance butterflies are mine. What I describe is not enmeshment or my desire to look through their cupboards. 

When one sister is away, a piece of all of us is with her. When one has a child, that love touches each of us. When one is up on stage, up on a high wire, up all night, up to her neck in duties, our blood flows towards her like, well... blood.

Tagged & Texted

Hot diggity damn, I've been tagged.

Normally this isn't my kind of thing, but seeing as though I was tagged by EC over at (Text)ure and (me)aning, I am thrilled. I mean, how could I refuse a request from someone who hand-knits text messages??

The rules:

* Mention the rules on your blog.

* Tell six quirky yet boring, unspectacular details about yourself.

* Tag six others

* Go to each person’s blog and leave a comment that lets them know they are tagged.

EC normally blogs text messages she sends and receives on any given day. And so in honour of her, my six unspectacular details are my 6 most recent text messages:

1. G'day Meg, the laundry liquid has come in. Cheers, Fiona Harris, Daylesford Aromatherapy. (FH>M)

2. Directions were perfect!! Thankschyoo! xo (E>M)

3. On my way to Creswick. Much love gorgeous one. (PJ>M)

4. Just saw all your texts. Thank you! At Bee's avoiding the hail. Rainy day and all I want to do is be nude wichoo. (M>PJ)

5. Amazing! Lovely guy. That sort of thing is normal for me. Always happy to help. Ariba! (J>M)

6. Perhaps Brunswick St and Brunswick St books? (PJ>M)

And so, in the spirit of the exercise, I hereby tag:

Hold These Words

The Doily

Huong Ngo

The Book Camel

The Writing Hive

Existence of Ellen

Happy Thursday Part 10

The Birthing

My folks are in town and I spent the better part of this morning with my mum sitting at a corner table at a café writing in our journals.

One of the techniques we use to get us started, something Mum has been doing for years, is to take a line from a poem and then incorporate it into our work: The line itself, a single word, or maybe just the sentiment.

Today's poem:

Between the Houses

When the first missionaries came to this land two centuries ago, they stole the Dreaming from the Aborigines and replaced it with the fear of God. They called the rituals that they didn't understand, bad. They took something that was untamed and joyous and put a barbed wire fence around it.

This fence was around Z this morning. He woke us up with breakfast in bed again. He was so chuffed with himself. 

"Oh my God," PJ or I said, I can't remember who, when Z told us that he had also made his own breakfast and for the first time ever, his own lunch.

Even though PJ and Z's mum's differences were so great as to cause them to divorce, on the whole the parenting Z receives in our house and his mum's is similar in style. Though of course there are some major divergences.

"Don't say Oh my God," Z said to us. "God is a rude word."

This issue has come up before and each time, PJ and I have explained that even if you believe in God, to say Oh my God is not being rude, it's just an expression.

Z's mum doesn't believe in God, but being the daughter of religious missionaries, it's not surprising that she censors Z according to her parents' conservatism.

I think Z's mum lets Z have a bit too much sugar and watch too much TV, but these differences are so minor compared to this indoctrination; compared to this suffocation of innocent Dreaming and the instilling of fear of something that doesn't exist.

The Man in Question

We moved into our house at the beginning of this year. We have made ourselves feel so at home so quickly, it's funny to think we haven't even been here 12 months.

When PJ went to see the council planning officer last year, the man asked why we wanted our house to sit sideways on the block instead of facing the street. 

"Because we want it to face north," PJ told him, in disbelief.

And lucky we got our way. Not just because our house is now solar passive, but also because our vista includes the side of the building on the corner of our street.

This morning our house was a flurry of six year-old excitement. Z woke up and said he saw a robber wearing all black going into that corner building. 

How did he know he was a robber? 

"The man was carrying a robber bag, don't you know Meg?"

He asked us to call the police but we said we couldn't because we hadn't seen the man in question. Instead, we asked him to draw a picture of the robber, which we took to the local police station before school. 

The cop on duty played along beautifully. He stamped Z's drawing and decorated him with police ribbons and stickers for his bravery.

Private Domestications

PJ serves breakfast on the deck.

A chicken at the door.

Toenails too long.

Droplets like stars on a clear night.

Public Domestications

From here.

Men Standing Around

The rear of the bus was stuck on the road. The incline of the driveway has caused many a vehicle to scrape its undercarriage or get jammed. I know this because the driveway is 100 metres from our house.

PJ, Z and I walked up to the end of our street and watched.