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.

Closing Down the Wilderness

I have been going in to Z's school once a week to help the older students set up a blog. One of the students wanted to take a photo of his classmates in the giant tree that they look out onto through their classroom window.

Just before recess their teacher said yes they could all go outside, but they were only allowed to climb the bottom two limbs.

How has it come to this: that needs of litigators are defining our school curricula not the needs of children? It reminded me of this excerpt from Michael Chabon's Manhood for Amateurs:

What is the impact of the closing down of the Wilderness on the development of children's imaginations? This is what I worry about the most. I grew up with a freedom, a liberty that now seems breathtaking and almost impossible. Recently, my younger daughter, after the usual struggle and exhilaration, learned to ride her bicycle. Her joy at her achievement was rapidly followed by a creeping sense of puzzlement and disappointment as it became clear to both of us that there was nowhere for her to ride it—nowhere that I was willing to let her go. Should I send my children out to play?

There is a small grocery store around the corner, not over two hundred yards from our front door. Can I let her ride there alone to experience the singular pleasure of buying herself an ice cream on a hot summer day and eating it on the sidewalk, alone with her thoughts? Soon after she learned to ride, we went out together after dinner, she on her bike, with me following along at a safe distance behind. What struck me at once on that lovely summer evening, as we wandered the streets of our lovely residential neighborhood at that after-dinner hour that had once represented the peak moment, the magic hour of my own childhood, was that we didn't encounter a single other child.

Even if I do send them out, will there be anyone to play with?

Art is a form of exploration, of sailing off into the unknown alone, heading for those unmarked places on the map. If children are not permitted–not taught–to be adventurers and explorers as children, what will become of the world of adventure, of stories, of literature itself?

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.

Sugru

Thank you Rachael for my care parcel!

I don't know which I was more excited by, the packaging or the contents.

The contents: Sugru.

Sugru feels like modelling clay, or Blu-Tack. It fixes in 30 minutes into whatever shape you mold it, and is ready to be used after 24 hours. It fixes soft because it's made from silicone. It sticks to metal, plastic, glass and ceramic. It's waterproof, dishwasher-safe, heat resistant, cold resistant, electrically and thermally insulating.

I don't write this to advertise, merely to explain.

Or if you're more image inclined:

After I fixed the ring and knife handle I was walking around the house like a woman possessed, trying to find broken things, considering what I could chip or bust or smash, just so I could mend it. I gave myself a high 5 I was so excited, when I remembered the missing bit at the bottom of the food processor.

I must admit I had hesitations at first, thinking of all the energy that goes into creating Sugru, but then I thought that anything that promotes the Repair Manifesto, over buying new gear, is definitely a good thing by me.

Overheard

The train leaves the platform. After sitting silently for a while, a woman looks up from her newspaper and says to her friend, "It says here that 90% of all large fishes have disappeared from the world's oceans in the past half century because of industrial fishing."

Her friend looks up in dismay.

The woman continues. "Only 10% of the whole world's tuna, swordfish, marlin, cod, halibut, skates and flounder are left. In the whole world! That's it—I'm never eating tuna again."

"Are you serious?" Her friend says. "I'm going to eat as much as I can before it's all gone."

Overlooked

Just over a year ago I was deeply moved as I took part in Deborah Kelly's tribute to one man's stance against the tyranny of his government.

So when PJ and I received an email about Ms Kelly's latest project, Muffled Protest, we jumped at the chance to be involved.

Here are some photos from yesterday's action in Melbourne, that aimed to highlight the overwhelming injustice of incarcerating asylum seekers and their children in detention camps—how blind we have become to the suffering of others.

The Honour

International Women's Day is on Monday, and to celebrate, our town had its annual IWD event to add the names of exemplary local women to its Honour Roll. In this photo, midwife Sally McCrae is accepting her honour. Under extreme political pressure, Sally fights, and walks the talk for women who choose to birth at home.

Later in the night, the keynote speaker from the International Women's Development Agency spoke. In her speech she pointed out that although women have so much to celebrate, we still have a long way to go until equality for all is reached. I agree. She read out some statistics including: only 3% of the CEOs in the ASX companies are women.

This percentage represents an enormous gender inequality and reminds us that although women may vote and live independent lives, we should remember who really holds the power.

I say, you can shove your corporate power up your ass. This statistic is not a measure of women's deficiency, but of their virtue.

The planet is in serious trouble because of greedy CEOs, so why would we want to participate in the corporate model? When decisions are made because of shareholder profits instead of forests and air and flowers and fish, why would we want to play with you? We don't value you what you value. We value what you cut down, what you poison, what you maim.

Some might argue that the system needs more women in order to turn it around, but I don't think that's true. What we need is a brand new systems approach; not one that is measured by a disembodied GDP, but one that functions within in a steady state economy.

I hope you have a great International Women's Day on Monday!

May our hearts be strong, and our vaginas, happy.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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

Rednesday: Th Gods

When some people come into our home for the first time, they ask PJ how he can live with all my red. It's true I have brought a lot of red things to this relationship, but it's funny that the most prominent red you see when you step through our front door is this quadriptych, which PJ made before he and I got together.

It's also funny that this work is the first thing you see when you walk into the house of two staunch atheists. I like to call myself a Jewish atheist. I was brought up Jewish and love the culture and traditions, but don't really see how any self-respecting female can believe in a monotheistic religion.

Ex-US president Jimmy Carter is batting for my team on this one. In Today's paper, in an article about why he is leaving the church after six decades he writes:

This view that women are somehow inferior to men is not restricted to one religion or belief. Women are prevented from playing a full and equal role in many faiths. Nor, tragically, does its influence stop at the walls of the church, mosque, synagogue or temple. This discrimination, unjustifiably attributed to a Higher Authority, has provided a reason or excuse for the deprivation of women's equal rights across the world for centuries.

Respect, Jimmy!

Here is what the original work – Fire Tower – looked like in situ:

Therefore I Am

I've often wished that I could have been in the room when Descartes came up with his famous quip, "I think, therefore I am." I would have put my arm around his shoulder and gently tapped, or I would have punched him in the nose, or I might have taken his hands in mine, kissed him full on the lips, and said, "René, my friend, don't you feel anything?"

– Derrick Jensen, A Language Older Than Words

The Local Campfire

This is the fireplace next to which we spent a great deal of our time last week. The house was très homey, albeit rather drafty. (I'm sure there's a Dad joke in there somewhere about written drafts and windy drafts, but I'll leave it up to mine to make it.)

Although our home here becomes super snug at the press of a button, we are missing the presence of the fire in our lives. Reading, writing, talking, knitting and making love by the heater just isn't the same.

When television was first invented then commercialised, apart from the programs it offered, I can definitely see why people were so inviting of it into their homes – there is much to be said about the comfort and company of flickering lights in the centre of a room. I agree with the sociologists who said that first television then the internet, are the new global campfires.

Although I found it difficult to be offline last week, I'm finding it just as hard to live without a fireplace now we're home.

The Rotary Test

The local Rotary club had a big function on last night. I wore all black and worked there as a waitress. I brought people food and collected their plates then I ate delicious leftovers and laughed until my cheeks hurt with the kitchen staff.

I came home late and was all sped up. I talked to PJ for hours about all the minor details of my evening; about the fussy eaters who kept me going back and forwards to the kitchen, about all the staff (including me) taking buckets of leftover scraps home for all our different animals, about the gas stove not working, about the large waistlines of so many guests that made it impossible for us waiting staff to squeeze past them.

Between the kitchen and the dining room was a tall side table pushed up against the wall that gradually became filled with gifts that people brought. I thought it must have been someone's birthday, but after we cleared the main course plates, they started raffling them off. Leaning against the wall on the tall gift table was a piece of A4 paper in a plain black frame. I wanted to tell PJ what was in it when I got home but I couldn't remember, so I jumped online and found it:

The Rotary test, which has been translated into more than 100 languages, asks the following questions:

Of the things we think, say or do:

Is it the TRUTH?

Is it FAIR to all concerned?

Will it build GOODWILL and BETTER FRIENDSHIPS?

Will it be BENEFICIAL to all concerned?

Pedal Power

Photo by Diana

So far I have blogged four posts that mention Victorian premier John Brumby, and of those four all of them have been negative.

Today however I have something favourable to say about him. Why my change of heart? Because he has finally come to his senses and yesterday pledged to spend $115 million on a cycling strategy that declares VicRoads will now be required to consider bike lanes in every major road project.

Under the plan, 23 bike paths around Victoria will be completed in the next 18 months, and 33 bike cages built at train stations around Melbourne.

"For the first time in Australia, bike riding has been formally recognised as part of the core transport system," said Bicycle Victoria chief executive Harry Barber.

Pretty good stuff! But before I take out my quill to write Mr Brumby's name in my good book, he first has to do a little soul searching and weighing up of good and bad of his own.

The Australian Grand Prix is set to start on Thurdsay, which means there are still a couple of days to call it off. 

What's it going to be, Mr Brumby?

The First Lawn

From One Green Generation:

Have You Heard? There Will Be An Organic Food Garden At The White House.

Michelle Obama is tearing up part of the South Lawn and planting an organic food garden for her family. How cool is that!

Michelle Obama has never grown a vegetable garden. The White House hasn’t had a garden on the South Lawn since Elanor Roosevelt planted a Victory Garden during World War II.

So How Did This Happen?

The Obamas have been lobbied to create a garden since before they entered the White House - even before Obama was elected!

Roger Doiron and Kitchen Gardeners International led that cause with their Eat The View Campaign. Roger created a YouTube video that became viral, a Facebook campaign continued the charge, the cause was joined by Alice Waters and other famous chefs, and people like you and I joined the cause by signing the petition, forwarding the idea to our friends, and so on.

The Obamas’ pediatrician had a hand as well. You see, the chaotic life of politics led the Obamas to eat out a lot, to have fast food and packaged meals regularly. Then Malia and Sasha gained weight! So the pediatrician gave Michelle a lecture in nutrition, and the family began to change their eating habits.

The family’s Chicago chef, Sam Kass - who came with them to the White House as assistant White House chef - is an advocate of the local food movement. He’ll be overseeing the garden himself.

The White House Executive Chef, Cristeta Comerford, and the Pastry Chef Bill Yosses will both be arranging their menus around the garden.

One of the White House carpenters, Charlie Brandts, is a beekeeper and has offered to keep two hives to provide fresh honey.

And you and I - who have come together to create a movement of local, seasonal, fresh, organic, home-grown food - we have had a large hand in making this happen. We have helped make it popular, we have helped make it important, we have helped redefine normal. Together.

From here, the White House garden will inspire many, many others to grow their own food, to pay attention to nutrition, to support local food systems. And we will all continue to do our parts as well. Together, we are changing the world.

Gift Economy

An article I wrote about the first time I went to Burning Man is on Travel Generation today. In it, I talk about how the festival operates on a gift economy. The gifts I took that year were button badges. There were 18 designs in all, six of which are above.

I have been thinking a lot about gifting. I disagree with Derrida's claim that the gift is impossible since, from the moment you receive it, it becomes weighted with obligation and no longer qualifies as a pure present. But I agree with Marcel Mauss's argument that solidarity is achieved through the social bonds created by gift exchange.

On Monday I left the house on three different occasions and each time I came back someone had left a gift near the front door. 

I mentioned to my friend Jo that I was looking for a recipe for pickling cucumbers as all our plants have fruited at once. She left three cook books with pickling recipes bookmarked, O left a stack of gleaned pears and Chris gave me a betting ticket for a horse called Good Red.

It's like when people ask me what I do for a living, I ask them if they mean for money or not. I operate within a capitalist template – I have a mortgage and bills to pay – but I exist within a gift economy where I care more about the exchange than my change.

Women!

Happy International Women's Day!

From one of my favourite female writers, Catherine Deveny:

It's International Women's Day this week and I'm wearing camouflage after my seven-year-old son handed me a tampon and said, "Here's one of your vagina bullets".

It's still a battle of the sexes. Quilting conventions, goddess weekends, hens' nights, book groups, chick flicks, women's studies and scrag fights aside, the gender war is still raging. The rumoured truce is a myth. Who said we're waving a white flag? Listen closely and you'll hear many still screaming blue murder. It's a bit hard to hear them, though, because most are gagged, bound and kept in cellars.

The gloves are off but we're still wearing the matching belt. Although I'm not one of the missing in action, I have war wounds and battles to fight despite my thin veneer of shock and awe and my reputation as a shoecide bomber.

The rest here.