Eve of a New Day

High 5-ing the World

Resolution? Promise? Goal? I don't know what you'd call it, but a year ago we made one.

In a conversation about where we'd like to be as a family, we quickly realised that the future we were planning didn't include a car.

Three years ago we gave up shopping at supermarkets, a year ago we gave up air travel, two months ago we gave up eating out of season and we're slowly transitioning towards giving up our mobile phones. But giving up our car feels like the biggest decision we have made so far.

It took us a year of preparation. We started a log book so we could see all the reasons we were justifying using the car. We biked, walked, carpooled and used public transport as much as we could, and after surviving the winter, knew that we were ready.

The town we call home has limited public transport options—no trams and no trains—so we knew we'd have to be a bit more organised whenever we wanted to leave. But on the plus side, we live in town, so it's a five minute bike ride up to the post office or library.

A week ago, we drove our car to Melbourne and delivered it to its new owner. The second he drove away it started to pour, and it dawned on me for the first time, the reality of our decision.

The next day, PJ started converting our carport into a bike/tool/potting shed.

After researching and test riding several cargo bikes, we finally made our decision. Yesterday PJ and I bussed and trained to Melbourne where we picked up our Kona Utes. Our first ride was a two-hour stint from the nearest train station, home.

My legs feel strong today, though my arms are a little sunburnt. Not from waving down passing cars to give us a lift, but from feeling so overwhelmed with freedom, I couldn't help high 5-ing the world.

Leave Them Kids Alone

The other day, when PJ and I had our heads buried in books, Z found an old chair in the shed.

The less we parent, the better for everyone — a sentiment PJ and I often talk about, and now that Z is growing up, a practice more easily fulfilled.

The book I had my head buried in was Tom Hodgkinson's, The Idle Parent, a book that expounds do-nothing parenting, just as Fukuoka posited do-nothing farming.

Hodgkinson writes:

We need low-impact parenting, do-nothing parenting, no-work parenting. Harness natural processes and nature will do the work for you. In the case of gardening, this may involve a lot of simply wandering about. Just sitting in your garden or strolling around it will produce umpteen ideas for low-effort improvement and refinement. So it is with children. Just sit near them with a book and watch them play and chatter.

...And incite new life into old things. And old parents like us.

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.

Mooncup

Last month when I blogged about our decision to give up international air travel, I asked if there is anything that you have given up in order to live a more sustainable life.

One reader emailed to say that she had bought herself a menstrual cup because she wanted to stop using disposable sanitary products. This is something I have also been wanting to do.

I hate that the Australian Government has placed the GST on sanitary items because they are considered non-essential, and even though I compost my tampons I still hate the waste of having to buy new ones every single month.

I have a friend who uses a Mooncup, so I bought myself one too. I have used it for one period now. It's recommended you empty it every four hours or so, but I found myself emptying it more often because I couldn't wait to see how full it was. The cup has measurements on the side so you can see how much you're harvesting. I was actually surprised how little blood there was as my tampons are usually soaked through, especially on the second day, my heaviest. I was also surprised by the colour of the blood - a rich, dark colour that tampons usually make look paler.

Each time I emptied the Mooncup I tipped the blood into a jar of water in the bathroom cupboard, then at the end of the five days I poured the bloody mix onto the soil around our budding fruit trees.

Why should I wait till I'm dead so my innards can be of use to the Earth?

Having Less

Since I made the decision to try to be more and do less, I have been thinking about other ways I might be able to uncomplicate my life. I have never been a hoarder and I live in a house with an uncompromising lack of storage, but over the years I have managed to hold onto many an item that I figured I might need again one of these days.

On Saturday, Z's school had a garage sale and auction to raise money for furniture to fit out their recently renovated art room. It was the perfect excuse for me to go through my history of accumulations so as to pass onto new owners, that which I no longer need to possess.

How about you? Do you have any de-cluttering tips for me?

Fresh Knickers

How often do you buy new knickers? Actually, that's none of my business. Sorry.

When we made the decision to only buy second hand clothes, I hadn't really considered the issue of buying underpants and bras. Occasionally we'll find plain cotton underwear in our sizes still in their packets at the op shop, and until recently that's been enough.

But the other day when PJ caught me wearing two pairs, I knew it was time to do something about it. (One pair had functional elastic at the top, and the other pair was still OK at the bottom.)

I guess we could learn to sew our own or we could go without, but this time, we bit the bullet and bought ourselves some new ones. And just in time, as I recently read that:

Police will soon have sweeping powers to search people at random, including strip-search, even if there is no reasonable suspicion those targeted have done anything wrong.

Do Nothing

For the first time in a long time I have started to read a book that's on PJ's reading list and not mine: The One-Straw Revolution: An Introduction to Natural Farming by Masanobu Fukuoka.

I have loved each passage PJ has read out to me, and then when he blogged this quote yesterday I just knew that I had to read the whole book myself:

The more people do, the more society develops, the more problems arise. The increasing desolation of nature, the exhaustion of resources, the uneasiness and disintegration of the human spirit, all have been brought about by humanity's trying to accomplish something. Originally there was no reason to progress, and nothing that had to be done. We have come to the point at which there is no other way than to bring about a "movement" not to bring anything about.

Fukuoka's solution is called Do Nothing Farming. It's not entirely Do Nothing, but is more concerned with nature playing the starring role and not people, pesticides or machinery.

I live in the country because I love the lack of hustle and bustle, but feel that my desire to create, accomplish and be productive has gotten in the way of my ability to be quiet with myself. I have forgotten how to do nothing.

And so, I have decided to start Do Nothing Blogging, where I will blog according to the season of my mood, and not every single day as I have been doing with gusto for the last year and a half.

This has been a big decision that's been coming for a while. It feels good to actually make it.

So stay tuned, and thanks for visiting us here in the Land of Meg.

Green Porno

Season three is now available to watch online.

Thanks for the tip, Larisa!

I'm Sorry, Lauren

I'm sorry that we killed you, Lauren James. I'm sorry that we forced you to have liposuction on your legs and bottom when you were only 26.

When I read in the paper that you died three days after the elective surgery, I blamed you and thought you foolish. Then I blamed your parents. Then I blamed your surgeon. Then I blamed your boyfriend for not telling you often enough how beautiful he thought you were. And then I realised who really is at fault.

At first I couldn't understand why you did it when you weighed 65kg and were 169cm tall, but it doesn't really matter does it, how much you weigh or where exactly you sit on the body mass index.

You had your breasts enlarged when you were 21. Although that surgery didn't kill you, I'm sorry we made you do that to yourself as well. We told you you'd be happy. We told you you'd feel fulfilled when you looked in the mirror and saw what we'd created. We didn't lie to you. We weren't trying to fool you. We love you! And we thought that what we love and value is what you could love and value as well.

The Female Brain

Do you have a female brain? Do you know someone with a female brain? Have you always wanted to understand the female brain but you've never been able to keep up? Then I recommend you read this book by Dr Louann Brizendine. My sister Abby recommended her three older sisters read it, and I'm really glad I listened. Thanks Ab!

I felt appreciated reading this book. Not that I ordinarily feel neglected, it's just that reading it I felt recognised and understood. With chapters such as 'Teen Girl Brain', 'Sex: The Brain Below The Belt' and 'The Mature Female Brain', it felt like a map of sorts, highlighting the topography, its highs and lows, of what a life looks like when you're in possession of two X chromosomes.

I learnt a lot from the whole book, but it was 'The Mommy Brain' chapter that I was most looking forward to reading and the chapter I got the most out of. For my research on stepmothering, I was curious about the biology of the brain of women who nurture offspring they didn't birth.

Brizendine writes:

Mothers may have better spatial memory than females who haven't given birth, and they may be more flexible, adaptive, and courageous. These are all skills and talents they will need to keep track of and protect their babies... This transformation holds true even for adoptive mothers.

Our friend Clare has recently become an adoptive mother in the foster care program to two bright sparks. Here they are with Z on our deck earlier this week. We think you're just ace, Clare.

You Don't Say

I have disabled comments for this post.

Ogori Mystery Café

On our last morning in Newcastle when we were packing up our things, we had very much in our minds the artist-in-residence who was arriving two days later. When we had arrived, there was some food leftover in the fridge and pantry from previous artists, and we were wondering what the next artist would think about all the goodies we had left in the kitchenette for her.

I felt the same way when we left our home to go to Newcastle and the afternoon we returned. I was conscious of leaving some nice food for our friends who were housesitting, and was thankful for the things they left for us when they departed.

I tell you all this by way of an introduction to the Ogori Café in Japan that operates on the same principal as the above two scenarios. When you order something, what you ordered goes to the next customer, and what you receive comes to you courtesy of the person who ordered before.

Image

The rules are:

1. Let's treat the next person. What to treat them with? It's your choice.
2. Even if it's a group of friends or a family, please form a single-file line. Also, you can't buy twice in a row.
3. Please enjoy what you get, even if you hate it. (If you really, really hate it, let's quietly give it to another while saying, "It's my treat…")
4. Let's say "Thank You! (Gochihosama)" if you find the person with your Ogori café card.
5. We can't issue a receipt.

From the blog where I first read about it:

It forced one to "let go", just for a brief moment, of the total control we're so used to exerting through commerce. It led you to taste something new, that you might not normally have ordered. It was a delight.

A great way to stimulate an outburst of social warming activity, don't you think?

Infancy to Adulthood

In a recent article, Forbes columnist Peter Robinson describes the scene of driving with his wife to take their daughter to the airport to go to college. It's an OK article, but what has stayed with me since I read it last week is the list of accomplishments Robinson assigns his 18 year-old daughter:

This product, our daughter, could bake a remarkably satisfying peach crumble, speak intelligently about Hamlet and Macbeth, play a shrewd, persistent game of tennis, perform a Chopin nocturne with only half a dozen mistakes, make her friends laugh out loud and braid her little sister's hair three different ways. No election to high office, no commercial undertaking, no literary or artistic attainment – none could equal the deed of nurturing a human being from infancy to adulthood to produce a product like this.

What a list, hey? As an 18 year-old, I would have liked to have made my folks proud with any one of those achievements. But something about this list has not sat right with me and I haven't known why.

We are going away on Thursday and this morning, as I added to our list of what to take, it occurred to me that Robinson's list is merely an inventory of skills that his daughter has learned and perhaps even mastered. As a list of feats, it's rather impressive. But it reads like a report card of competencies, and to me, lacks any kind of meaning.

Is she thoughtful? Does she hold the door open for people behind her? Is she kind? Is she polite and respectful? Is she concerned about her peers and the planet?

Am I expecting an unreasonable intimacy from a writer I've never met? Am I expecting him to value the same qualities in a person that I esteem? Or at 18, is one still too unformed by the world to have any real connection to it?

Down and Dirty

I have an article in the current issue of Bicycle Victoria's Ride On magazine. It's for a section called Women's Spin, aimed at raising the profile of cycling among women.

This is the photo of our chook Louie that accompanies my words:

The gist of the article is that when I lived in Melbourne, I considered feminine to mean unruffled, neat and delicate. "If I could have sat side-saddle on my bike I would have."

But now that I live in the country where I grow vegies and keep chooks, you will often see me pedalling around in my dirty gardening clothes. "In the city I would check myself in the mirror before going out in public, but now I wear my soil-covered clothes and straw-filled hair like a flag I wave proudly to proclaim who I am."

I hadn't thought twice about it, until yesterday afternoon when Z and I were talking about the men and machines that have been working opposite our house for the last week. It has rained every day that they've been there and I commented to Z that I would much rather be warm and dry and working from home than drenched and cold and slipping around in the mud.

'But don't you like getting dirty?' Z asked me, stunned. And that’s when I realised that although I love the dirt and may even define myself by that love, I can't actually say that I like getting dirty. Not in the same way that a seven year-old boy can, anyway.

Bad Decisions Make Good Stories

It used to be that when people forwarded me humourous emails I would usually find them funny enough to forward on to other people. That's a rarity these days. But. The other day my friend The Dooch forwarded me these in an email that I think are worth sharing with all of you.

From ruminations.com:

• What would happen if I hired two private investigators to follow each other?

• Obituaries would be a lot more interesting if they told you how the person died.

• Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realise you're wrong.

• I totally take back all those times I didn't want to nap when I was younger.

• Is it just me, or are 80% of the people in the "people you may know" feature on Facebook people that I do know, but I deliberately choose not to be friends with?

• Do you remember when you were a kid, playing Nintendo and it wouldn't work? You take the cartridge out, blow in it and that would magically fix the problem. Every kid did that, but how did we all know how to fix the problem? There was no internet or message boards or FAQs. We just figured it out. Today's kids are soft.

• There is a great need for sarcasm font.

• Sometimes, I'll watch a movie that I watched when I was younger and suddenly realise I had no idea what the fuck was going on when I first saw it.

• How the hell are you supposed to fold a fitted sheet?

• I would rather try to carry 10 grocery bags in each hand than take 2 trips to bring my groceries in.

• I think part of a best friend's job should be to immediately clear your computer history if you die.

• LOL has gone from meaning, "laugh out loud" to "I have nothing else to say".

• I have a hard time deciphering the fine line between boredom and hunger.

• Every time I have to spell a word over the phone using 'as in' examples, I will undoubtedly draw a blank and sound like a complete idiot. Today I had to spell my boss's last name to an attorney and said "Yes that's G as in...(10 second lapse)..ummm...Goonies".

• I find it hard to believe there are actually people who get in the shower first and THEN turn on the water.

• I can't remember the last time I wasn't at least kind of tired.

• Bad decisions make good stories.

• Why is it that during an ice-breaker, when the whole room has to go around and say their name and where they are from, I get so incredibly nervous? Like I know my name, I know where I'm from, this shouldn't be a problem …

• You never know when it will strike, but there comes a moment at work when you've made up your mind that you just aren't doing anything productive for the rest of the day.

• Can we all just agree to ignore whatever comes after DVDs? I don't want to have to restart my collection.

• I'm always slightly terrified when I exit out of Word and it asks me if I want to save any changes to my ten page research paper that I swear I did not make any changes to.

• "Do not machine wash or tumble dry" means I will never wash this. Ever.

• I hate when I just miss a call by the last ring (Hello? Hello? Dammit!), but when I immediately call back, it rings nine times and goes to voicemail. What'd you do after I didn't answer? Drop the phone and run away?

• I hate leaving my house confident and looking good and then not seeing anyone of importance the entire day. What a waste.

• I like all of the music in my iTunes, except when it's on shuffle, then I like about one in every fifteen songs in my iTunes.

• I keep some people's phone numbers in my phone just so I know not to answer when they call.

• Even under ideal conditions people have trouble locating their car keys in a pocket, hitting the G-spot, and Pinning the Tail on the Donkey - but I'd bet my ass everyone can find and push the Snooze button from 3 feet away, in about 1.7 seconds, eyes closed, first time every time...

• I wonder if cops ever get pissed off at the fact that everyone they drive behind obeys the speed limit.

• I think the freezer deserves a light as well.

• My 4-year old son asked me in the car the other day "Dad what would happen if you ran over a ninja?" How the hell do I respond to that?

Guest Blogger: ETG 3

Image from here.

I am an enormous fan of opportunity shops (thrift stores). I love them. If I am on foot when I pass one, I can’t go past it. You just never know what might be in there. And that’s the beauty of them: you just never know. You may find a treasure, you may find nothing. There’s no certainty. Shopping elsewhere, you can be fairly assured of what you’ll find, and security is certainly an important and necessary thing. But an opportunity shop…well, it provides you with opportunities. Can I use that? Can I wear that? Would that go with those red shoes of mine? What would I do with that?

And today was no exception. In amongst the faded Mills-and-Boons and the old Womens Weeklys, I spied Present Moment Wonderful Moment by Thich Nhat Hanh. For $2! He is a Vietnamese Buddhist monk and he is a great advocate of the principle of Mindfulness. For some time, I have been aware that there are some thought patterns and behaviours of mine which could do with, shall we say, a re-adjustment. As a result, I have been thinking a lot about different ways of seeing the world. The notion of Mindfulness has much that’s appealing to say on this topic but I have found it to be a difficult notion to define for myself, to understand in a way which provides me with a personal meaning for it and ways in which I can make it a part of my life. Even my GP said to me, “Mindfulness…yes. Very interesting. But I’ve often wondered—(his voice dropping to a bewildered whisper)—just what is it?”

Well, Thich Nhat Hanh sums it up beautifully. Certainly he talks about such important and complex topics as meditation practice, but he also brings Mindfulness to bear on washing the dishes, brushing your teeth, cleaning the bathroom, eating, throwing out the garbage and answering the phone. Be aware of each dish and the sensation of the warm water on your hands. Don’t make time spent doing housework unpleasant, being in a hurry to move on from it. Brush your teeth in preparation for a day of compassionate speech. Answer the phone with a smile and so sending that positivity to whoever is on the other end.

The profane is the sacred, Thich Nhat Hanh tells us. There is beauty and meaning in everything, not just in the extraordinary or the expensive. Treasure is everywhere, you just need to stop and look and take your opportunities as they present themselves.

Previously in the Land of Meg:

ETG guest blog 1

ETG guest blog 2

Upstanding Citizen

Ghostbusters

This is one of the postcards on PostSecret this week.

I was eleven years old when Ghostbusters first came out in Australia. It was one of the first movies I can remember reading about and counting down the days till its release.

I remember coming home from school camp to learn that my mum had taken my sisters to see it without me. I was devastated. She told me she enjoyed the film so much she was happy to see it again.

I remember sitting beside her in the theatre as the lights were going down, my legs sweaty on the big vinyl seat. I was so overwhelmingly excited, I can still remember what I was thinking:

I. Am. Just. About. To. See. Ghostbusters.

I still have those enormous rushes of excitement. They have nothing to do with the film, but precede occasions that I am looking forward to enormously. My Ghostbuster moments.

In Real Life

When I sat down to blog yesterday, I hadn't intended to write about Pookie and winter, I had wanted to write about the first time I read the book to Z. It was his bedtime and we were snuggled up together while I read him the story about all the woodland animals and Pookie the rabbit who told winter to go away and then come back again.

Even though I was brought up Jewish, I am OK that Z still believes in Santa. "But Santa goes over land to every house – reindeer can't fly!" He recently assured me.

The first time I read him the tale of Pookie, he asked me if the story happened in real life. It amazed me that Z is 7 and thought that a story about talking animals could be true. I guess if he straight out asked me if Santa is real, I would say no, but he has never asked me. Which is why I told him the truth when he asked me about Pookie and his friends.

As soon as I'd said no, I didn't regret it, though I did feel as though I had taken something pure and oh so lovely from him, that he'll never be able to have back.