Deranged Bunny

 

Dear Mister Easter Bunny, 

Hi how are you? I was just wondering if you could take a photo of yourself on the camera please. And not to be rude or anything, but people say, and there is this movie about what I am about to say called Hop. Does Easter Bunny, you, digest and drop jelly beans out of your backside? Because if it is true can you please do it.

PS You are the best

I will also leave you a carrot

Jack xxoo

 

Jack, who mostly behaves like a world weary ten year old bad ass gangsta rapper, decided to write the Easter Bunny a note.  This suggests that perhaps he still is a child under that tough and cool exterior and that he may still hold onto the vague hope that myths such as EB and Santa might just be real.

However, his innocent and sweet intentions were set to ruin upon the discovery that his seven year old brother had already marked the other side of the page with the following depiction of me:

That's me! Flipping the bird. Naked. Leaking breasts. Dilated pupils. Definitely not a vajazzle in sight. Let's face it, looking pretty unhinged and deranged.

Jack and I were equally disturbed by the discovery of this image and for entirely different reasons. We did however both agree that Easter Bunny probably wouldn't like it and that it might be a good idea to re-write the note on a clean sheet of paper.

The kids discovered this morning that EB doesn't drop jelly beans but bullets instead. It's an Aussie thing.

I've discovered what I really look like through the eyes of my children and have been considering a course of therapy to recover some semblance of sanity and positive self image.

Going for Good

Are you going for good?

I get asked this regularly.  But I am not sure what it really means.  I guess it means; you ain't coming back for a while, are you?  And I guess the answer is probably; no, I guess we ain't.

However, the term 'for good' has such a ring of permanence to it.  I feel that by answering yes we are somehow bound to the decision, we can never return, re-neg or rebound.  Stuck forever in that place we choose to go.

But aren't we all in a state of impermanence?  Anicca.

" Anicca is a Pali word for "impermanent." The Buddha taught that everything conditioned is impermanent. To be conditioned is to be dependent on or affected by something else, and Buddhism teaches that all phenomena, including beings, are conditioned.

The transitory nature of all conditioned things is the basis of life. Because all phenomena are in a state of flux, change is possible. New life is possible, and enlightenment is possible, because of anicca."

As a child I travelled quite a lot.  I don't find the notion of moving house, town or country particularly stressful.  Our reasons for moving weren't motivated by poverty or misfortune.  My experience was always one of adventure and excitement.  I felt safe and secure wherever we went.  I come from a long line of professional global shifters.  Most of the male members of our family having served in the Air Force and others being adventurous entrepreneurs.  All the women adept in packing up house.

So we shift again to the other side of the globe.  The only thing I won't do next time is ship the entire contents of my house.  Travelling light is the key to this global shape shifting gig.

I have had a bit of advice lately on what to take and what to off load.  Some say take only the items that have a real purpose.  In this they refer to something practical I am sure.  But I can't overlook the value in an emotional connection to the pieces we surround ourselves with at home.

This chest of drawers some would argue is completely expendable and readily replaced.

But I created the story behind it.  I salvaged the drawers, then lovingly restored and painted them with a beautiful Farrow and Ball colour.  They also fit perfectly in the alcove beside the bed in our London home.

And what for the trinkets and pictures on top?  They all have meaning and history.  They remind us of who we are and where we have come from.

A friend once suggested that having a single item of furniture that travels with us from home to home would give the kids a sense of continuity.

The piece I chose to fill this job is our kitchen table.  Perhaps a rather large and cumbersome choice I will admit, but there is more to it.

A slab of European oak made to measure.  Slightly wider than the usual measurement and about 6ft long.  A wide matching bench runs down one side to squeeze lots of kiddies upon.  The chairs I recently salvaged and renovated myself.

More than the obvious practical purpose of the table there runs a romantic notion too.  The idea to have one central bit of furniture around which family life evolves.  The focal point for family activities, the heart and soul of the home.

What better item than a kitchen table?  Of course it rarely looks like the photo suggests.  It's usually covered in stuff, the dumping ground, both literally and metaphorically.  It sees and hears everything this table.  It's been around the world!

My romantic vision sees this table staying with us forever.  I am not sure it's even made so well to stand up to the expectations I have put upon it.  Nor do I treat it so well that it should want to stay with us forever.

But already after less than five years the surface is marked with time and memory.  Ink marks and scratches and stains that connect us to our past and remind us of who we are and where we have been, that root us to the place, wherever that might be.

So in packing up this home my guidelines will conform to not only the practical uses for the items selected but their true value in terms of connecting us to our home and to our past, and providing the comfort and stability that allow us to accept and conquer the challenges that lie ahead.

How do you travel? What are your packing guidelines?

Dopey Pants

'There is no way in the world any son of mine is going to be caught dead in a pair of those dopey swimmers.'

Those were the words of the man of the house.  The fashion police.  The family style radar.  And I gotta say, those pants do look pretty 'gay'.  And I mean that in the playground sense of the word 'gay' because I reckon that any self respecting gay bloke would actually much prefer a good old tight fitting pair of budgie smugglers any day.

They can't be good for a chaps bits n bobs, let alone a wee lad whose bits n bobs are just trying to get off to a good start.  On top of that they cost a bloody fortune.  The marketing is great: World's fastest swimsuit, it says.  Less drag, lightweight, water repellent.  Aspirational stuff.  Who wouldn't want a pair?

What those swimmers say is: Hey I take my swimming pretty fucking seriously, and I am prepared to look like a complete twat to prove it.  You won't be laughing when you see what a speed demon I really am.  Shaves splits off my time?  Shaves seconds I'm telling ya.

But do they actually work?  That's what we all really want to know.

Well perhaps the marketing should add to its blurb: water propellant.  Today I witnessed the results.  Swimming in Australia is a science and a source of national pride.  We refer to our national swim team by their first names only, like members of our own extended family.  When you've been away for a while this obsession can make you feel a little uncomfortable.  A little like the smugness of the Aussie cricket team.  It's an embarrassment that makes you cringe.

Jack had his swimming carnival today.  Not being privileged (or self obsessed) enough, he doesn't own a pair of high performance swimmers (yet).  He placed third place in all his events.  The first and second places were taken by the same boys in each event.  Now don't get me wrong, I am super proud of my boys efforts.  This is a lad who didn't even swim so well just over a year ago, having spent most of his young life in London.  But what did those boys have that he didn't?

Aside from a consistent Aussie upbringing and probably having been in a pool since they were in nappies, there were two very obvious items missing from our kit.

Firstly, a swimming cap.  Jack has worked hard on his luscious blond surfing curls over the summer and my God, who wants to hide that glory under an ugly plastic cap?  He might not be self obsessed when it comes to the racing gear but he spends an awful amount of time (for a ten year old boy) in front of the mirror perfecting the hair.

And secondly, you guessed it.  The dopey swimmers.

I guess maybe there is truth in the blurb.  Maybe those swimmers really do have little propellers that pop out under water.  Or was it repellent?  Same thing.  If you wear the swimmers the water repels you, pushing you away.  Those boys were streaks ahead.  The combined streamline of dopey pants and plastic caps has to account for a few seconds surely?  All those Olympic champs can't be wrong.

But hey, never let great science get in the way of great personal style, I can hear the man of the house say.  Winning isn't everything!

What's with the Kookaburras?

Travelling up to Sydney from the south coast of NSW, my Mother and I stopped into an antique warehouse in the charming township of Bowral in the Southern Highlands.  I share my Mother's love of old things, antique jewellery was her passion. She'd once had an antique jewellery business, Greentree Antiques,  housed in a corner of an old theatre in Windsor.  A cavernous and magical place filled to the brim with the most fascinating objects.  A place you could spend hours and still not feel like you'd seen it all.  My sister and I would get lost in that theatre during school holidays.  Upstairs there was an area which was off limits to the public to house the overflowing horde.  It was, of course, the most intruiging place of all.  There was a heavy dusty theatre curtain that drapped across the stairwell to stop customers going up.  We would sneak up there whilst nobody was looking and spend hours trawling through boxes and admiring obscure curiosities.  It was here we once happened accross a box of vintage erotic photography.  We'd never seen anything like it in our lives, little eyes popped out of their heads, we swore ourselves to secrecy and emerged unusually sheepish from our regular adventures.  That old school erotica is still so much more exciting than the modern adaptions.  It was an era when less was more, the imagination was allowed to create the fantasy.

That day, with my Mother in Bowral, was probably the last time we mooched about an antique shop together.  Some months later she was gone.  I'd been searching for little bits of Australiana to take home to London, it had been the general theme of my holiday purchases.  It was in that antique warehouse in Bowral that I came across an old painting of three kookaburras sitting on the branch of a gumtree.  A little rough and a little damaged but framed in a beautifully carved wooden frame.  I fell in love with its rustic Australian charm and had to have it to brighten the walls of my dark basement flat in London.  It would be a little reminder of our sunny roots.  Mum had always been a brilliant business woman, clever and charismatic, I called in her help to negotiate a good deal.

That painting has adorned my walls ever since.  It's a symbol of so much more to me now than my Australian heritage.  It represents family and memories, respecting the past and taking care of the future.

The kookaburra is a family orientated bird living in small units with the older generations taking care of the youngest.  The famous kookaburra laugh is both a greeting and a territorial warning, but once one group starts off it seems the whole neighborhood will join in, often just as the sun is rising or setting.  I like to think that both ends of their day are marked by this calling to one and other, a good belly laugh enjoyed with family and friends.

Where I currently live in Australia we have a family of kookaburras in our backyard, they seem so confidently assured and majestic in their domain and I feel somehow that we have become a part of their family too, so intently they keep watch over us.

So why have I called my blog Kookaburra Laugh?  I felt like life with a family of my own was constantly throwing up a variety of amusing and often challenging situations.  At the end of the day it's often a case of: if you don't laugh, you'll cry.  I prefer to take a leaf out of the kookaburra's book.