Wayward wonderings...

Sorry about that!

I’ve come back to writing the blog a little later than I promised. Just after I wrote my little note on the 4^th September I got a lovely stomach bug and then a headache that lasted about a week, and so looking at the computer was limited to work and not much else!

Oh – and I said that I was going to talk about “Stranger Things”, but I got the name wrong. I’m going to talk about “Wayward Pines” instead. If you haven’t seen it and plan to I will try not to give any spoilers.

The premise of the show is that a select group of people have been selected to be put in cryostasis by a particular man who predicts that something bad is going to happen to humanity. The people are woken up some time later (a long time later) and often don’t even know that they were put in cryostasis, so they wake up rather confused.

Anyway – that’s a pretty all over the place, brief description of the show.

What got me thinking though, is that one of the key aims of the community of Wayward Pines is to increase the human population. And anyone who could not produce children was seen as unnecessary and were…well…I’ll say no more on that.

It’s a real commentary on what is important to humanity. Would it be the case if something happened to humanity and only a certain number of people could be saved that those unable to have children would automatically be left behind?

What if a brilliant poet or philosopher or teacher or scientist was unable to have children? Would they be left behind? Okay – so the scientist may not be as they would have something to “contribute” – which is another issue altogether on what is valued in society and what is not.

If Charlotte Bronte, or Plato, or Degas, or Beethoven, or Confucius were around and couldn’t have children - would they be left behind?

If the only thing that is of value when push comes to shove is the ability to procreate, then what would we lose? Who’s to say that those who can’t have children have nothing to contribute that is worth saving?

Art has been around as long as humans have been. Storytelling, music, all of that – crude as it might have been – were part of early human society.

Of course it isn’t an either/or – having a child doesn’t mean you can’t be an artist too!

I’m getting myself all confused now. What is the point of this entry?

I guess my point is that people are much more than just their ability to procreate, but when it all boils down, people who can’t procreate are seen as “not as worthy”, not as valuable.

But, we are. I say we are. I say we have a lot to give. We have a lot to give future generations. No matter what society says.

All grown up…

Last year I redid our front yard to use only plants that are indigenous to our area. I wrote a blog post about it on the 3rd of March 2014.

One of the shrubs I chose was a wattle.

These photos show just how much it has grown and how beautiful its flowers are.

As a baby...

All grown up...

Beautiful flowers...

 As I’ve written before – while I can’t create a baby, I can create through words, through gardening, and in many other ways.

I sincerely believe it is important for people who want children but are unable to have them to find a creative outlet of some kind. This doesn’t necessarily mean something that is considered traditionally artistic. You could do up cars, you could nurture relationships with your loved ones, you could create adventures to go on with your family or friends.

The joy from seeing something come about because of you is an incredible feeling.

I often go out the front just to touch the wattle's leaves and flowers, and to talk to it. If that makes me sound strange then I’m proud to be strange...it seems I’ve always had an affinity with nature (maybe because I’m part Celtic?).

When I was about two years of age I was visiting the hospital where I was born. My Mum found me out in the garden where there were some stately old gum trees. I was standing quietly and Mum asked me what I was doing. I told her that the trees were talking to me (in the words of a two year old course).

I don’t hear my wattle talk, but I do believe it is part of me and I love my baby.

The garden…

There has been a lot of progress in our garden since I last wrote about it in the entry of 4th March 2014. The baby plants have grown steadily, the creek beds are finished on both sides of the drive way, and we finally have mulch!

It has been a stop and start process, but I am really pleased with the oasis that we have created in our front yard.

The last time I wrote about the garden I had just put in the plants – a wattle, a knobby club rush, a black anther lily, and a pig face. They were tiny, as you can see by the photos below. I was quite harsh on them. We had a week or so of hot weather (around 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit)), but I didn’t let that deter me from strengthening up the plants. I watered them three times a week for about two weeks and then they were on their own. And they thrived! All of the plants are indigenous to our area and so they are perfectly suited to growing on their own with little assistance from us.

I ordered the mulch about a fortnight ago. When I ordered mulch for our front yard at our old house, before we sold it, I made a mistake and ordered enough for three gardens…so this time I gave the dimensions to the supplier and asked them how much we needed. Two metres cubed of mulch was delivered to us on a Thursday afternoon. I had ordered forest mulch instead of bark chips as I want our front yard to be as natural as possible. The first thing I noticed when I went out to greet the delivery person was how much the mulch stunk. I thought I had made a big mistake.

Not to worry though – the smell was due to the mulch being compacted and in the sun when stored at the garden centre. The smell went away once the mulch was placed over the garden.

I set about mulching on the morning following delivery. I thought I would get it all done by lunchtime and then I could do other things in the afternoon (like take a long bath with Epsom salts in it!). I have a tendency to underestimate how long things will take. I started at 9.30am and finally finished at 4.30pm…

Laying newspaper under the mulch took the most time. Newspaper is brilliant at stopping weeds growing, and along with the mulch I do not envisage much weeding in the front yard in the near future. Yay!

It was quite an enjoyable day. It’s nice to get out in the sunshine and do some physical work when most days I sit inside writing or editing. Our neighbours were having pavers laid on the same day, and mid-morning I wanted coffee so I offered them a tea or coffee too. They didn’t want to be a bother, but I was putting the kettle on anyway, so they accepted. One of the men is from Vietnam and the other is from Afghanistan. The man from Afghanistan was hesitant to tell me where he was from when I asked. I find this very sad as it is very likely his caution comes from negative experiences he has had here. To me, he is a person, but I know there would be people who would immediately assume because he is Muslim and from Afghanistan he must be a terrorist. It’s ridiculous. I said how sorry I am about what is happening in Afghanistan. He said that most of the people want peace, but there are men who like to fight and he doesn’t understand it.

Later on, when the man from Afghanistan was having a break, he came over to our yard and offered to help me for a while. I had no expectation or even thought that I would get help from him, so it was a pleasant surprise. I have only recently learnt to accept help from others and realised that I don’t have to do everything by myself. It has been a tough lesson because it has meant letting go of the need to try and control everything and also letting go of the belief that I have to do everything on my own to prove that I am good enough. So, I accepted his help. I laid the paper and he brought wheelbarrows full of mulch to the sections of the yard I was working in.

It was a lovely time of neighbour helping neighbour and neighbour sharing with neighbour.

So, the garden is looking great, if I do say so myself. Have a look at the photos below which show the changes from August last year to March this year to now. We have created a place for life from the dreariness that our front yard once was.

I can’t wait to go to the nursery and buy more plants this weekend. Yay!

The creek bed August 2013, March 2014, and August 2014

The side creek bed and ponds August 2013 and August 2014

The front yard August 2013, March 2014, and August 2014

At one stage I thought we would lose the Black Anther Lily, after planting it in March, but it is a determined little plant

The Knobby Club Rush was barely visible in March, but now it is a healthy grass and has tiny flowers on it

The Pig Face has grown from a spread of just a few centimeters to more than one meter since March

The Wattle now almost covers the stick that dwarfed it in March. I can't wait til it flowers...

What happened to my baby?

My cousin and his wife welcomed two gorgeous little girls into the world this past week. I haven’t met them yet, and I am very much looking forward to lots of cuddles!

I often dream about our own baby or babies around the time that a friend or family member had a child. This week was no exception.

I dreamt I was holding my baby boy. He was about six weeks old and we were in a temple-like building. There were a lot of people there and I didn’t recognise any of them. A group of about six men were standing on a platform next to an altar. The best way to describe these men was that each of them was a mix of a monk, a druid, and a grim reaper. They were dressed in dark brown robes with hoods that covered their heads and faces. I knew they were very old.

A ceremony started in which I was to hand over my son to the men so that they could take him to their monastery (for want of a better word) to teach him their “ways”.

I felt I had no choice in giving up my son, until a grey haired old woman with plenty of wrinkles and age spots quietly glided up to me and whispered “run”.

As often happens with dreams my son and I were instantaneously in another place. It was a road that actually exists and links the town I grew up in to one of the neighbouring towns. I was running up the gravelled verge of the road and trying to wave down cars. I held my baby boy out to get people to see that he needed their help.

The men from the temple were following me, but they were gliding rather than walking. Their robes were so long that I couldn’t see their feet, but I knew their feet weren’t touching the ground. I was terrified.

As they drew closer a yellow car pulled up to help us. I’m not very good in identifying cars but it looked like a Buick from the 1970s but it had four doors instead of two. The back door opened. I couldn’t see any of the occupants, but I started to get in the car anyway. It was the only option my son and I had left. The men from the temple were extremely close to us now.

That is where the dream ended. I don’t know if we made it into the car or whether the men caught us. I don’t know who the occupants of the car were. Were they dangerous? Were they going to help us? Were they part of the monastery and actually deceiving me? Was I going to lose my son?

I woke up in a state of panic and unsure where I was for a moment. Then, like all dreams about our children, I was sad and my arms felt empty.

I’m still not completely sure what this dream means. It wasn’t a conglomeration of things that had happened in recent days or weeks – I certainly haven’t met any men recently that are a mix of druids, monks, and the grim reaper. I haven’t driven, let alone walked, the road between my home town and its neighbour.

The most obvious interpretation is that with the birth of my cousin’s daughters my mind is once again processing our loss and I still hold onto the wish that I could do something to keep my children from harm.

But I’m not sure that the dream is only about that. Lately I have been struggling with my work and my creativity. I have been wondering if writing is really what I want to do, and I’ve been close to giving it up and trying something else – something that might be easier. Is the baby perhaps a representation of my creativity?

I’m going to leave this entry here rather than ramble on about it. I will be reflecting on the dream some more, and will write about it again next week.

I would be very interested on any ideas you may have regarding what this dream could mean.

Later this week I want to write about another aspect of the birth of my cousin’s daughters.

So, til then…

Garden update…

The blog entry on the 19^th of August last year was about different ways of being creative. My biggest creation in life was going to be our children, but I have now found other ways of being creative. These outlets don’t replace the children we could have had, but they do provide a way for me to be creative in my life in other ways.

One of these ways was to redo our front yard. I had plans to have it all finished by last September (the beginning of our spring). It would have a fake creek bed, indigenous plants and new bark to cover the dirt and keep the water in the soil as much as possible.

But life decided otherwise.

We have done some work, but I had had problems with my feet since last May and they got progressively worse over the next few months to the point where walking and standing was painful. So, the garden had to be put aside.

I was angry about the situation for a while. It seemed that life was going to throw another obstacle my way to prevent me creating something beautiful. Fortunately I found a foot clinic that does not use surgery or orthotics and they have been able to significantly reduce the structural pain in my feet.

I have another issue where my feet feel like they are burning, and none of the specialists I have seen have been able to work out what is wrong. My neurologist has given me new medication in regards to my epilepsy (I started to have a new type of seizure a few months ago) and one of the benefits of this is that it helps with pain as well. My feet aren’t perfect now, but I can walk, I can bike ride again, and I can garden!

I have been very fortunate and now only have to deal with a small amount of pain – which I am learning to cope with.

So, now my garden is up for some digging and planting and weeding…I can’t wait!

These are some photos of where we are up to, and I promise to update you on our progress.

Life hasn’t allowed me to create children, but I am creative none the less.

The start of the creek bed

Another view of the creek bed

Black Anther Lily

Pig face

Knobby club rush

Wattle

Creativity...

The biggest creative act I thought I was going to do in this life of mine was to have a child. Whoops! I guess that didn’t go quite as planned!

For a few years after we realised we weren’t going to have children I felt torn away from my creativity – I thought I was completely empty of a creative life because I couldn’t have a child. It took a while for me to realise that I can be creative in so many other ways. My garden is one of them.

When we bought our house, our front garden looked like this…

Our house when we bought it

 It had an ornamental olive tree, daisies, a formal square of bricks, stones and bark (with no weed prevention measures at all), and some daisy type bushes which like to reseed themselves around the place.

This was not a good garden for our area for many reasons, some of which are:

• It is hard to maintain – we are continually have to weed, remove the plants that reseed (especially if they end up the neighbours’ yards).
• Watering is a nightmare – we live in southern Australia and water is by no means abundant. The plants are not indigenous or even native to our area and so require watering.
• The plants are bad for the environment – this especially goes for the olive tree. We live near a wetland and across from a small waterway that feeds the wetland. Water hens are everywhere and like to come across to our yard and get the olives. This is dangerous for them as they have to cross a road and could get run over, and they also they take the olives back to the waterways where it is very easy for the seeds to travel with the water to other locations and grow. Olive trees grow very easily around here.

The wetlands

The waterway across the road

A water hen

So, I (we) decided to change our yard completely. Gone are the olive tree and the daisies. Out came the formal square of bricks, and the stones are in a pile of sorts in one part of the garden.

Knobby Club Rush

Ruby Salt Bush

Our plan is for a fake creek bed to run from one part of the yard to another, three fake water holes along the driveway, to paper under the bark to help stop weeds, get fresh bark, and plant only plants that are indigenous to our area – knobby club rush, ruby salt bush, a bottle washer, pig face, wattle, creeping boobialla and maybe even a nodding chocolate lily. I’ve already dug the creek and water holes and Felix and Frankie (two of our cats) love running up and down the creek  - it is a whole new adventure for them (they are easily entertained!)

Bottle Washer

Pig Face

        

   

Creeping Boobialla

Nodding Chocolate Lily

Gold Dust Wattle

At the moment, this is what it looks like…a bit of a construction site! But it is all part of the journey.

I feel really good creating what I know will be a beautiful front yard. I may not be able to have children, but I realise I can put my creative energies into other things – including my garden.

The removed pavers...

The creek bed...

The creek bed again...

The three waterholes...

The three waterholes again...

I’ll put a photo up when it’s completed with baby plants, and then another photo when the plants have grown up a bit.

Photo Credits:

First three photos from Google Street View
"A Water Hen" from http://www.mdba.gov.au/what-we-do/education/students/fun-and-games/kids-memory-game
All plant photos from http://www.ala.org.au/
Last five photos from own photos

Waiting and waiting...

This life hasn’t given Kirby and me children of our own. At first this was an enormous gaping hole that was too much to bare, but over time we have both found dreams to follow that, while they don’t make up for not having children, do give us a sense of self and a sense of purpose in our lives.

One of my dreams is to be a published author. I want to make a living writing science fiction. I don’t want to write some great literary masterpiece, but I do want to entertain people, and make them think (at least a little bit).

I’ve started writing a novel just recently – well, I actually started it about three years ago, but it’s only recently that I’ve been taking my writing seriously. I’m really enjoying it. I’m getting to know the characters and they are starting to give me ideas about what could happen in the story (some great, and some I wonder what on earth these characters are thinking!), and the story is evolving.

This isn’t the first bigger piece of writing that I have attempted. From July to December last year I wrote a book called “When You Can’t Have Kids”. It covers many of the insights I write about on this blog (in more depth) and talks about a great many more as well – such as how realising you are not going to have children can make you question your marriage, reworking the house so that “that” room is no longer the hoped for child’s room, and creating a life different from the one you imagined.

I sent part of the manuscript of the book to a publisher at the start of the New Year. The deal was that if you sent it in on a Friday they would guarantee to read it and if they wanted to see more they would contact you, but if you didn’t hear anything within three weeks you could assume they weren’t interested – no further correspondence entered into.

I didn’t hear from them.

So, I sent it off to another publisher. With this one I will have to wait for three months, and then if you don’t hear anything you can assume they are not interested – no further correspondence entered into.

It’s fun! Not really, but that is the nature of the publishing world. Publishers tend not give any feedback on manuscripts. It is hard, because when your manuscript isn’t accepted you have no idea why.

So – I’m about half way through the three month wait now, and I must say I’m getting a little bit antsy. I keep wavering in my mind between they will love it to I will hear nothing.

One thing that does bother me while I wait is that books are being published about people who experience infertility. That in itself is not the problem, but it is frustrating when the books are written by celebrities who share their story about how they couldn’t conceive a child, but then had one round of IVF and had a baby. It is great that they had a baby – I am happy for them – but one round of IVF is very different to going through three and then realising you will never have a child.

It sometimes feels as though their stories are more important because they are famous – then again I guess having a big name as an author will sell a book or two.

I just hope that somewhere out there is a publisher who is willing to take a chance on an everyday person’s story, and a story where IVF just didn’t work.

Wish me luck!

I am Woman...or am I?

One of my favourite books about women, spirituality and growth is 'Women who Run with the Wolves' by Clarissa Pinkola Estes. I pick it up every now and then and flick through a few pages - it's kind of like visiting an old mentor to remember a lesson or hear a story again.

Yesterday, when I was revisiting the wolves, some of the words really made me think. They were 'We are not meant to be puny with frail hair and inability to leap up, inability to chase, to birth, to create a life.' And, further, 'This vitalising 'taste of the wild' comes during pregnancy, during nursing their young, during the miracle of change in oneself as one raises a child.'

I am unable to birth or create a life, and I cannot taste the wild through being pregnant or giving birth. Does that mean I am less creative, or less of a woman? I used to struggle with this a great deal. I felt a failure, I felt I wasn't whole, and I felt I didn't have anything of value that I could give that would be deeply and soulfully from me.

I still feel like this from time to time, though the feeling has mellowed.

I ask myself what my value is, what my creation can be, if not that which comes through having a child. Because I am a woman and I am creative.

So, how do I taste the wild? I look at the moon, I feel the pain that comes with menstruation, I let any anger and grief that I feel wash over me, I play and laugh with the children in my life, with my pets, with my family, I watch a spider weave its web, I bury the body of a baby bird that has fallen from its nest.

How am I creative? I write, I cook, I clean, I talk with, play with and love the children in my life, I care for my garden and my animals, I work on my marraige.

There are some women who have had children who will never even sense that the wild is there, and nor will they be more creative for having had a life in them.

And I've realised that not being able to have a child does not take the wild away from me and it most certainly does not mean I am uncreative. My way is different - that's all.

Oh, and I still love 'Women who Run with the Wolves' - it is far more than the two sentences above - they need to be read in context...