Saturday, June 16, 2012
Dignity.
At the moment I am eating room service in the bathroom, crawling around on all fours in the main room, with the TV on mute, the tiny girl asleep in the king size bed, and the baby asleep in his cot, with one eye open at all times awaiting my return from the ensuite.
Hello parenthood in a hotel room.
I think I caught myself thinking I would meet friends at a bar later tonight for a moment back there. In reality, even having a shower, finding my pj's in the dark and watching Top Model at minimum volume would at this point, be on par with cocktails and djs. Really, what was I thinking?
At least there is wine and a view of big city lights.
Thursday, June 14, 2012
Onto the plane we go.
Trips can take weeks in the planning.
Or you can do it in an hour, as I have done this time around. So today, my people, we fly!
The kids and I are headed to Sydney, I need to give my friend a big big hug and share some tears with her as she grieves for her Mum. It will be great to just get there and see her.
In the meantime however, I have to grapple with more immediate priorities. The plane ride to Sydney as a single mother with a baby and toddler. In truth, the only thought in real circulation at the moment is how can I possibly get out of this?
The slightly rushed frenzied way we are leaving has forced me to tie up a few administrative loose ends that I had mentally scheduled to do over the next week. It's amazing what one can achieve when there are not endless aimless days in compound land to fill. One morning can result in incredible efficiency.
I've distributed cash like I've won big in Vegas, debts are clear! I've stocked the fridge and cupboard for weeks ... for the man of the house you ask? Well, no. For our haus meri who we of course ensure is well stocked and comfortable in our home, while we are away. Hmmm ... yes another day of the picture looking slightly whack to me.
Me to her as I am rushing out the door to tie up my loose ends: "Are there any urgent things you need from the supermarket over the next few weeks?"
Her (musing for a moment): "No, just get me some bleach."
Me: "Okay"
Her: "And get me some Chicken Tonight."
Me (a brief pause, scrambling to make a list, which seemed necessary all of a sudden): "What flavour do you like?"
Her (again, musing): "Oh, I don't know. Just get me any."
And so it happens that on this particular departure morning, I found myself in the supermarket isle grappling over whether to get lemon mustard, chicken tikka, or apricot chicken Chicken Tonight for my haus meri.
Solution: throw money at the problem and buy them all.
Or you can do it in an hour, as I have done this time around. So today, my people, we fly!
The kids and I are headed to Sydney, I need to give my friend a big big hug and share some tears with her as she grieves for her Mum. It will be great to just get there and see her.
In the meantime however, I have to grapple with more immediate priorities. The plane ride to Sydney as a single mother with a baby and toddler. In truth, the only thought in real circulation at the moment is how can I possibly get out of this?
The slightly rushed frenzied way we are leaving has forced me to tie up a few administrative loose ends that I had mentally scheduled to do over the next week. It's amazing what one can achieve when there are not endless aimless days in compound land to fill. One morning can result in incredible efficiency.
I've distributed cash like I've won big in Vegas, debts are clear! I've stocked the fridge and cupboard for weeks ... for the man of the house you ask? Well, no. For our haus meri who we of course ensure is well stocked and comfortable in our home, while we are away. Hmmm ... yes another day of the picture looking slightly whack to me.
Me to her as I am rushing out the door to tie up my loose ends: "Are there any urgent things you need from the supermarket over the next few weeks?"
Her (musing for a moment): "No, just get me some bleach."
Me: "Okay"
Her: "And get me some Chicken Tonight."
Me (a brief pause, scrambling to make a list, which seemed necessary all of a sudden): "What flavour do you like?"
Her (again, musing): "Oh, I don't know. Just get me any."
And so it happens that on this particular departure morning, I found myself in the supermarket isle grappling over whether to get lemon mustard, chicken tikka, or apricot chicken Chicken Tonight for my haus meri.
Solution: throw money at the problem and buy them all.
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
The bad samaritan.
Having a miserable sick husband has shown me just how uncharitable I can be.
The poor thing is desperately sick, searching for sympathy, and unfortunately for him - he is searching in all the wrong places. What has driven me to this cold dark place?
Kids.
When he came home at lunch today, sad and sorry and just wanting to reach for bed, I was doing some serious food processor/blender work to make the lunch orders of my screaming kids. A piece of vegemite toast upstairs in bed? You must be f***ing kidding me.
He retired to the lounge room where he thought he could unwind with some soothing newfolk music.
Umm ... SICK PEOPLE GO TO BED, THEY DO NOT RECREATE AS THOUGH THEY ARE LIVING IN INNER CITY STUDIO FLAT WITH NO CHILDREN.
Up the stairs he went ... miserably.
Lunches done, baby asleep, young lady amused at least momentarily, I ripped off the apron and grabbed the car keys to make the supermarket run. I popped my head in to see the man reclined on the bed, bathing in the gentle rays of the afternoon sunlight, perusing the latest Vanity Fair.
I took a deep breath and asked him if he was okay, or needed anything .... no thanks, he said weakly as though even that took more energy than he could really spare.
I threw an sandwich at him and left, desperately hoping that I could be sick too. How fun! No jobs, just bed and magazines for a few days.
In sickness and in health .... I shall remain the grumpy woman of the home. Oh dear. Hope I get some sleep soon so I can be less Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction and more bouncy and fun like Jennifer Anniston in well, anything (for his sake).
The poor thing is desperately sick, searching for sympathy, and unfortunately for him - he is searching in all the wrong places. What has driven me to this cold dark place?
Kids.
When he came home at lunch today, sad and sorry and just wanting to reach for bed, I was doing some serious food processor/blender work to make the lunch orders of my screaming kids. A piece of vegemite toast upstairs in bed? You must be f***ing kidding me.
He retired to the lounge room where he thought he could unwind with some soothing newfolk music.
Umm ... SICK PEOPLE GO TO BED, THEY DO NOT RECREATE AS THOUGH THEY ARE LIVING IN INNER CITY STUDIO FLAT WITH NO CHILDREN.
Up the stairs he went ... miserably.
Lunches done, baby asleep, young lady amused at least momentarily, I ripped off the apron and grabbed the car keys to make the supermarket run. I popped my head in to see the man reclined on the bed, bathing in the gentle rays of the afternoon sunlight, perusing the latest Vanity Fair.
I took a deep breath and asked him if he was okay, or needed anything .... no thanks, he said weakly as though even that took more energy than he could really spare.
I threw an sandwich at him and left, desperately hoping that I could be sick too. How fun! No jobs, just bed and magazines for a few days.
In sickness and in health .... I shall remain the grumpy woman of the home. Oh dear. Hope I get some sleep soon so I can be less Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction and more bouncy and fun like Jennifer Anniston in well, anything (for his sake).
Today's destiny.
In my desperate driving mission today to secure a wheel of brie for my 5pm wine-time, I overtook at least two cars that advertised they had a Glock on Board (what happy, go lucky people!), sat in two traffic jams, crossed over the freeway median strip when it all became too much, patronised the B-lsit supermarket in vain hope for the Jindi, came out with some dusty cartons of UHT milk instead and came home.
Lesson: learn to love Kraft singles.
Lesson: learn to love Kraft singles.
This round goes to the kid.
So anyway, about this journey we call *parenthood*.
At the moment I feel a bit like an all night-worker who also works the breakfast/lunch/dinner shift at the local cafe. Toast, milkshakes, five portions of vegetables per day, lunch, snacks, dinner, it is all a blur. In the midst of the sleep deprivation, and quite frankly - general confusion as to the day of the week/time/where I or my brood are supposed to be at any given time etc, I am learning that I/we are also supposed to have some kind of disciplinary/ethical/moral framework to raise our children within.
As small ones leave baby-hood, they become *people*, and as they are still quite new to the world, they need to be taught how to behave, or so the theory goes. Where I am a bit lost at the moment is on the matter of how in god's name my young lady learnt how to mis-behave without so much as a peep from any of us. She's got it down, straight up!
In the midst of pureeing something and boiling something else late in the day yesterday, I reached for a new tactic. The Behaviour Watch Board. I had no idea what I was doing. Anyway, it involves days of the week and happy and sad faces. The aim is to have more happy faces, as that equates to the predominance of good behaviour. Some kind of tallying exercise and active participation from all adults. Sounded good to me! Serious, yet not punitive. A chance for her to 'take ownership' of her own behaviour. (I really hate that expression, and recognise that my family and I are not on a reality TV program). I dropped the pumpkin, reached for the white board, put on my serious but not scary voice, and cobbled together some kind of chart-type creation.
Her response: "I want a sad face." "Mummy, I want a sad face now."
Goddamn her subversive tactics!
My stupid white board was to her passion for crime what the International Criminal Court is to a rogue state. Irrelevant. She refused to recognise its legitimacy. Therefore, it does not exist.
One day on, the only sad face is mine, as the crime wave continues unabated. The white board remains blank, and is in the distant recesses of whatever it was that happened yesterday.
At the moment I feel a bit like an all night-worker who also works the breakfast/lunch/dinner shift at the local cafe. Toast, milkshakes, five portions of vegetables per day, lunch, snacks, dinner, it is all a blur. In the midst of the sleep deprivation, and quite frankly - general confusion as to the day of the week/time/where I or my brood are supposed to be at any given time etc, I am learning that I/we are also supposed to have some kind of disciplinary/ethical/moral framework to raise our children within.
As small ones leave baby-hood, they become *people*, and as they are still quite new to the world, they need to be taught how to behave, or so the theory goes. Where I am a bit lost at the moment is on the matter of how in god's name my young lady learnt how to mis-behave without so much as a peep from any of us. She's got it down, straight up!
In the midst of pureeing something and boiling something else late in the day yesterday, I reached for a new tactic. The Behaviour Watch Board. I had no idea what I was doing. Anyway, it involves days of the week and happy and sad faces. The aim is to have more happy faces, as that equates to the predominance of good behaviour. Some kind of tallying exercise and active participation from all adults. Sounded good to me! Serious, yet not punitive. A chance for her to 'take ownership' of her own behaviour. (I really hate that expression, and recognise that my family and I are not on a reality TV program). I dropped the pumpkin, reached for the white board, put on my serious but not scary voice, and cobbled together some kind of chart-type creation.
Her response: "I want a sad face." "Mummy, I want a sad face now."
Goddamn her subversive tactics!
My stupid white board was to her passion for crime what the International Criminal Court is to a rogue state. Irrelevant. She refused to recognise its legitimacy. Therefore, it does not exist.
One day on, the only sad face is mine, as the crime wave continues unabated. The white board remains blank, and is in the distant recesses of whatever it was that happened yesterday.
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
The Dump.
Lately I have had my head in a lot of garbage. Scavenging is my thing, as in - my thesis topic.
Thankfully I stumbled onto this website in the course of my research, it was a welcome break from statistical data sets of solid waste breakdowns.
Joakim has been kind enough to let me use one of his photographs in my work. Check out the Scavengers series , and the rest! This series reminded me that there is always beauty, and if not beauty then at least something interesting to be found in the most unexpected of places. I am desperate to grab my camera and start a series on Port Moresby, especially at the moment in the midst of this noisy, unpredictable and electric election campaign. There is so much urban decay that I think it ends up creating a weird kind of beauty. People always make things so much more interesting.
What I find hard to resolve is how to get the photos I want, without being a white woman with an expensive camera shooting kids selling peanuts with no shoes. Denial seems like the only way forward!
How can you take beautiful intimate photos of certain human experiences you are not a part of? I wish I knew!
My inability to resolve this means that I have about 2000+ photos of my kids on the living room floor. Now there's something I am a part of!
With only six months to go, my challenge to myself is to create a series of photographs of Port Moresby, this razor wire town that will have been my home for three years. I just hope it goes better than last time - I got reprimanded by the bank security guards and had to delete all my photos in front of them, before then getting heckled by truckloads of amused young men as they drove on by. Needless to say, I did not get the sense that I was 'blending in' to my surrounds.
How to not be conspicuous? Losing the 6+ month pregnant belly is surely a step in the right direction! At least this time I will be able to slip through small spaces sideways. Perhaps I should have a realistic goal, and attempt to photograph Port Moresby as I know it, the people, the places. Go somewhere that I feel comfortable, and somewhere that is familiar.
I know!
A series called Checkout-Chicks: SVS Harbourside and Boroko Foodworld.
Actually, that would be pretty cool.
Thankfully I stumbled onto this website in the course of my research, it was a welcome break from statistical data sets of solid waste breakdowns.
Joakim has been kind enough to let me use one of his photographs in my work. Check out the Scavengers series , and the rest! This series reminded me that there is always beauty, and if not beauty then at least something interesting to be found in the most unexpected of places. I am desperate to grab my camera and start a series on Port Moresby, especially at the moment in the midst of this noisy, unpredictable and electric election campaign. There is so much urban decay that I think it ends up creating a weird kind of beauty. People always make things so much more interesting.
What I find hard to resolve is how to get the photos I want, without being a white woman with an expensive camera shooting kids selling peanuts with no shoes. Denial seems like the only way forward!
How can you take beautiful intimate photos of certain human experiences you are not a part of? I wish I knew!
My inability to resolve this means that I have about 2000+ photos of my kids on the living room floor. Now there's something I am a part of!
With only six months to go, my challenge to myself is to create a series of photographs of Port Moresby, this razor wire town that will have been my home for three years. I just hope it goes better than last time - I got reprimanded by the bank security guards and had to delete all my photos in front of them, before then getting heckled by truckloads of amused young men as they drove on by. Needless to say, I did not get the sense that I was 'blending in' to my surrounds.
How to not be conspicuous? Losing the 6+ month pregnant belly is surely a step in the right direction! At least this time I will be able to slip through small spaces sideways. Perhaps I should have a realistic goal, and attempt to photograph Port Moresby as I know it, the people, the places. Go somewhere that I feel comfortable, and somewhere that is familiar.
I know!
A series called Checkout-Chicks: SVS Harbourside and Boroko Foodworld.
Actually, that would be pretty cool.
Sunday, May 13, 2012
A mother of a day.
I suppose I was being a bit naive when I thought Mother's Day this year would be in accordance with what one would typically expect. Warm fluffy slippers, breakfast on a tray, a cute homemade card, surrounded by the people I love, with no jobs. Maybe even a quiet afternoon nap.
Here's the thing.
In order for my special day to remotely resemble the Myer catalogue, the man of the house needs to be on top of his game. Not hungover.
Mother's Day 2012 was the probably the busiest day I've had this calendar year, as it turns out. Before I knew it, or indeed was even properly awake, I was whipping up a quick batch of pancakes for one kid while spooning rice cereal into the other. Hours passed, and then it was 9am. Time to go to the pool! Wait, a screaming baby! Better quickly put him to bed first. And so on, and so forth.
By midday I was really fresh out of ideas, and almost out of steam. I decided to go on a lunch date with my girl. The baby was asleep again, so we ducked out.
I sat at the restaurant with her sipping a coke, and I watched her eat chip after chip, and drink sip after sip of her Orchy orange 'juice'. And I thought this: I am in love with my kids. They are beautiful. My little two year old sat in her chair at the table with me for almost an hour. We chatted, ate, looked around. She told me about her favourite colour at the moment, her favourite song. When it was time to pay, she got up with me and pulled her buzzy bee along behind her, wings buzzing as his wheels turned. It was very very cute.
On the quick drive home, she fell asleep. I carried her into the house, took off her purple sunglasses and watched her sleep. My beautiful lunch companion.
Then it was time to return to the baby. I spent a good 20 minutes nibbling his ear, blowing raspberries on the side of his tummy, and finding the spot where he is the most profoundly ticklish. His screaming laughter was completely infectious. He is a true joy to be around, every minute of the day (nb. this excludes 2am, 3am, 4am and 5am). When he started to get grumpy and grizzle, I handed him back to his ailing father and departed for bed. Godspeed my friend.
So, yeah. Not quite the day I expected. But - it was a day where I had nothing to do except enjoy my kids, and I did. I feel very blessed to have them in my life. They are a miracle to me in so many ways.
There's always next year for the pink bathrobe! Until then, I will be hard at work drumming up ideas for how to make Father's Day this year truly memorable!
Here's the thing.
In order for my special day to remotely resemble the Myer catalogue, the man of the house needs to be on top of his game. Not hungover.
Mother's Day 2012 was the probably the busiest day I've had this calendar year, as it turns out. Before I knew it, or indeed was even properly awake, I was whipping up a quick batch of pancakes for one kid while spooning rice cereal into the other. Hours passed, and then it was 9am. Time to go to the pool! Wait, a screaming baby! Better quickly put him to bed first. And so on, and so forth.
By midday I was really fresh out of ideas, and almost out of steam. I decided to go on a lunch date with my girl. The baby was asleep again, so we ducked out.
I sat at the restaurant with her sipping a coke, and I watched her eat chip after chip, and drink sip after sip of her Orchy orange 'juice'. And I thought this: I am in love with my kids. They are beautiful. My little two year old sat in her chair at the table with me for almost an hour. We chatted, ate, looked around. She told me about her favourite colour at the moment, her favourite song. When it was time to pay, she got up with me and pulled her buzzy bee along behind her, wings buzzing as his wheels turned. It was very very cute.
On the quick drive home, she fell asleep. I carried her into the house, took off her purple sunglasses and watched her sleep. My beautiful lunch companion.
Then it was time to return to the baby. I spent a good 20 minutes nibbling his ear, blowing raspberries on the side of his tummy, and finding the spot where he is the most profoundly ticklish. His screaming laughter was completely infectious. He is a true joy to be around, every minute of the day (nb. this excludes 2am, 3am, 4am and 5am). When he started to get grumpy and grizzle, I handed him back to his ailing father and departed for bed. Godspeed my friend.
So, yeah. Not quite the day I expected. But - it was a day where I had nothing to do except enjoy my kids, and I did. I feel very blessed to have them in my life. They are a miracle to me in so many ways.
There's always next year for the pink bathrobe! Until then, I will be hard at work drumming up ideas for how to make Father's Day this year truly memorable!
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