Keep it simple, silly

Tuesday, December 27, 2005


Perfect pair. My friend Helen and the latest addition to her life: Eli.

Congratulations Helen!!

Thursday, December 22, 2005

Expectation is such a sneaky thing. There I was thinking I had few major expectations about what this would be, and yet the most obvious one of all has been staring me in the face while I suffer chronic domestic blindness.

I was the expectation. There I was looking everywhere else for it, and the whole time it was me! The perfect partner; the perfect step-dad; the perfect manager: Mr Incredible! All these things I have never been I somehow expected to be the moment I stepped off the plane, jetlag notwithstanding.

What it is to be a super human being: the entire universe becomes entirely dependent upon you for its survival. All this time it has existed not realising how much it needs you, somehow stumbling through the darkness and surviving – but surely not really living. And now Super Humanbeing is here to make it all right!

No wonder it all seemed so difficult. That truly is quite a responsibility. Exhausting stuff, really.

And so obvious, yet somehow obscure. I noticed it a number of times: something would go ‘wrong’ – a lack of awareness, a ‘mistake’, - and that would set me in an unliftable fog. I knew in my head that it’s not possible to ‘do it wrong’, yet all the evidence was suggesting I had. And naturally, the dominoes would then start falling and the prophecy fulfilled itself. It always does. We get what we ask for, and I was ‘wrong’.

It turns out I can get way down on myself for making a mistake – especially when I’m attempting the Super Humanbeing myth. A mistake! Isn’t that the ultimate opportunity for forgiveness? Isn’t it a good place to cut some slack? Turns out Super Humanbeing doesn’t have much room for compassion: too busy saving the universe to care for it; to love it. Point missed by superhuman proportions.

And now, as I dissolve slowly back into ordinariness, things are starting to get easier. One of those ‘mistakes’ appeared the other day, and before Super Humanbeing could commence punishment, E said, “Don’t let this get you down. Please be forgiving. If you can’t forgive yourself, how can you forgive others?”

Thank you, E. Thank you for reminding me again and again why I’m here.

Saturday, December 10, 2005


Snowed under. It's all new, this. All that white stuff is really quite cold.









Sledgends. And fun!

Friday, December 09, 2005

This is bigger than I imagined. It seems that moving half-way around the world to live with someone you’ve only just met and her two kids in a place where almost everyone is a stranger, is actually a little difficult.

A month has gone by now, and I feel I am starting to ground. I don’t have a choice – the snow and ice have set in and we can’t go anywhere at the moment! Can’t even get the car out of the driveway.

So I settle. A tuning fork tuning in. First the wild vibrations from side-to-side and all the noise that entails, and now, slowly, finding my centre. Moving to stillness.

And not before time, either. Poor E has been so patient. My mood has been swinging commensurately with the tuning motion, and E has experienced as much of me as she could want to. All of me, hopefully. All the things that have made this one the one she felt was right for her. It is like watching a sculptor at work, only in reverse: first she saw the ‘finished’ piece, and now she sees its construction. Fascinating; difficult: I have been all this and more.

The work is clearly far from completion. We are art directors previewing a work in progress, painstakingly searching for cracks and blemishes; preparing an extensive list for the artist to consider prior to the exhibition.

And despite the list’s overwhelming length, the artist is quietly confident he can meet his mentors’ expectations. He is used to seeing miracles around him.