see the ducks?

G’day & all the best for the season.

I’m falling asleep in my chair here at 1:48 on a Monday afternoon.

This year we sent no Christmas cards. Not a policy decision. Not a sign of things to come. So g’day and all the best for the season.

Yesterday I took the girls for a walk along the Merri Creek. We walk out the front door here & less than 5 minutes later we’re on the creek track. The creek was up. It’s been raining. Swirling eddies and fallen branches backed up behind a rushing chute and bubbling little rapids. All this in East Brunswick.

I reckon walks along the creek will be a feature of our life here. I’m imagining a future of late summer evenings with orange & purple sunsets & cicadas chirping and I’m imagining bleak winter afternoons wrapped in a decent coat to hold out the slanting rain & Antarctic southerlies. And all with the creek burbling alongside.

Catching up with mates and hearing stories of theirs. Adding them to my Year of Stories. My first year as a teacher could be called a Year of Stories. Merging into the life stories of 125 early teenagers. Catching snippets of their lives. And the second-hand stories about the friend of a friend. Really it has been a year of forging relationships.

The woman who has just now been left by her husband and the fact that she is right now facing her life at eight months pregnancy and the fact that he’s now living with another woman and the singles (‘specially the ladies) beginning to fret about their domestic futures and the rapid rise in the frequency with which the term “biological clock” enters conversations and the widowed woman who has just moved out of her family home of 47 years and into a self-contained unit and her feelings of loss and emptiness and loneliness and the teacher who spent the last three months facing imminent unemployment trying his hardest to teach a full load of classes and on top of that having to apply and apply and apply and apply again for his next contract position at any school he could find because of the contract system used for employing teachers and the old woman whose son lives in Queensland and who is excited beyond words about his trip down to see her next weekend and the crackerjack student who was deported to Turkey along with her mother in mid-year by our Immigration Department. For example.

The Year of Stories has been wearing. There’s a lot to listen to.

Our new house lies in a quiet street but more than that, it lies within a community of like-minded people. Cakes and visits and fresh rosemary and fresh lemons and 6-year-olds and bottles of wine and handshakes between the drivers of two separate cars through open windows have all taken place within our street community in the past few weeks. We’re home.

Babies dominating my life and the lives of so many people I used to know. Is there a right way and a wrong way? To do anything? What happens if you choose the wrong way? What are the consequences? Will any of it matter? What is best for you right now?

So many decisions.

I feel drained and exhausted. Welcoming an extended break from work and the chance to recharge. Lots of walks & lying around & tinkering with our new house & playing with the girls.

<>

<>Next year I will work 4 days/week. Every Monday off. To be at home with the girls. It feels another step in the right direction. Eventually, I aim to not work at all & instead write & draw & go on long walks & ride my bike very languidly along no fixed path. And I feel about a hundred years older than I did last year.

It’s time to sleep and dream now.
Goodnight to you & yours.
-dave.

om mani padme hum

Funny the things we congratulate each other for. Some mates just told us they were pregnant ("they" are pregnant - not her, note). Congratulations! Do we normally congratulate each other on news of sexual acts? But pregnancy is different, isn't it? We are really saying congratulations for your decisions & the ideas & the hopes & the dreams & all that has gone through your heads up til now. So I guess it's not at all strange to offer congratulations.

Pregnancy is a tricky topic for the early/mid-30s. Who knows someone who is "having trouble"? I reckon most of us. In Year 10 Science this year we found that 1 couple in 6 would find it near-impossible for genetic reasons. So do you talk about it? Avoid the topic? Offer support? Tricky topic. Not for the first time, I feel lucky.

Here, I'm talking less as "me" and "I" and more as "we". It's logical & perhaps to be expected. Bit I'm finding myself fighting it. Would like to preserve my identity, maybe. It's Saturday night here & I've just downloaded paul kelly's latest (stolen apples) and that of radiohead (in rainbows) (and no, we didn't pay).

we had a family gathering here today for the occasion of Stephanie's 2nd birthday. She'll be 2 on the 26th. All is well. Little Kyla (Kyla-koala, Kyla the smiler, etc) is forging a reputation as potentially the next Dalai Lama, such is her apparent ocean-like reserve of calm & tranquility. I've started calling her my little Lama.

We’re trying to live local & live with minimum stress & maximum time for ourselves. It’s tricky. But I find it a comforting ideal. For example, I’m proud that we don’t own more than one car. e have each made choices that mean we work within a 10 minute bike-ride of home. I’m proud of the time that we have chosen to spend with Stephanie & Kyla. I hear a lot of regret from parents whose kids have grown about missing the early years. A Sunday morning with Cath at work & Steph standing amid every single item of Kyla’s clothing that she has just pulled from the cupboard & Kyla writhing in my arms & crying with tiredness, I happily have no such regret.

Catherine & I have noticed a huge majority of people struggling with Kyla’s name. Kayla, Kaylee, Kylie, and they’re just the closest three. I suspected that a non-standard name would cause a few people trouble, but I’ve been disappointed to find such an entrenched trend. I guess she will need to make a name for herself now.

<>Kyla is a beautiful baby. Heard that before from a dad? Well I’m not joking. She is a beautiful baby. As the 6-month date ticked over we were going through a difficult period of sleeplessness in this household. Stephanie was ill, I was ill, Catherine was ill, and Kyla was ill. Two little ones and no sleep – the situation was fraught for many days. It was hard going and there were some dark moments. We decided to teach Kyla how to sleep & it has worked well enough (for now). She has started eating solids & sings da-da-da-da & laughs a lot.

I hope we are still eating solids & singing da-da-da-da & laughing a lot in the days & weeks & years ahead. We're packing up house here - moving on Cup Eve. Our new house & new adventures await. Hope all is well for you & yours.

blanket; on; legs

g'day amigos,

School holidays. No sleeps-in, but many slow days. Days and days of humans being. Planning with Catherine, playing with Stephanie, knowing Kyla. CJ has seen Kyla through the “fourth trimester”; that first 3 month period of life during which Kyla adjusts to our Earth and we all adjust to her needs. Catherine achieved this while also parenting, supporting, loving, and enjoying 17-month-old Stephanie. Daily, I nicked off to work.

So here we are in July and Steph is 20 months old and she is talking. She speaks more each day and learns new words each day. Today her new words included: milk crate, tricky and elephant. Hearing her construct a sentence is constantly exciting. It seems that she speaks using colons; e.g. “Kyla: awake!” or “Hair: caught: bib” or “Steph: slippers: on.” Stephanie is a loving and supportive big sister of Kyla and a handy helper around the house, too. When Kyla spewed over my shoulder yesterday, Steph cried: “uh-oh,” ran to retrieve a tea-towel and used it to mop the floor.

Kyla is now 3 months old. Her emergence from the fourth-trimester twilight zone has been palpable this week. Her eyes blink in the light and head cranes around slowly, mannerisms similar to a Top End sea-turtle. Curled up on someone’s shoulder like a koala. She has settled right in to a great routine and is fit & well.

Life is quite regimented now. At work I live by the clock. Live in the shadow of an imminently sounding bell. At home I live by the timing of routines and needs of the girls. It’s reached the stage where I could nominate with extreme accuracy where I’ll be, what I’ll be doing, and what time I’ll be doing it on any day for the next 3 months. So very different to the sprawling timescales of uni research life & the unpredictability of the single man.

It’s a complete mental shift.

Fitting additional or non-routine happenings into the well-oiled machine of daily life? My first reaction is to resist. Keep it easy. Keep it simple. But recently I’ve taken up some opportunities and they have been a reminder – a reminder that life goes on outside our house. Riding to the MCG for some footy, out for a dinner date with my beautiful bride, several pints on a Thursday night. Music is playing and the vibe is grand.

Teaching has been relentless and it has been immediate. By relentless I mean that the workload and the pressures and the needs and responsibilities seem never to end. Time in the classroom is a minor part of the job, but that is where the true work is done and where the rewards are found. By immediate I mean that every issue/ concern/ catastrophe/ moment of great need that occurs seems to require an immediate response and needs one in a face-to-face context. Human interaction and the human condition engulf me all day every day – a huge shift from the social isolation of a partitioned office on the first floor of C Block with email as the sole umbilical link.

I am loving the humanity in my daily existence these days. Life right now is exhausting and is brilliantly coloured. It’s like a Papua New Guinean bird of paradise in full flight.

Go well. dave

life, a new life begins

Since I last wrote here I have met someone new. There is a new presence in my life and she is breathtaking. Kyla Therese Wilson was born inside the first 30 minutes of 2 April, 2007.
She may never comprehend the drama of the preceding 24 hours; I hope she never does. Yet at the end of it all, here she is.
She came home along Lygon Street after spending her first 3 nights at the Royal Women’s Hospital. She nestled into her capsule as we crawled among the evening peak hour. Single occupant cars everywhere. Darkness but for headlights and street lights and the brightness of shopping strips. Returning home from work. Cigarette smoke out the window. Cutting us off to enter our lane, only to see traffic in their original lane take off. Without them. Trams on the tracks full to the brim. I felt both tired and serene. There was nothing to be anxious about on this journey. Mum had taken Stephanie home, where we would all soon meet again, the four of us. Four of us.

We have all been home for two nights now. This morning Stephanie checked out Kyla in more detail than ever before; pointing out her toes, her knees and her hair. This morning Stephanie said her sister’s name for the first time (Ka-ka). It is a wonderful time of discovery and introduction for us all.

(it’s the next day now. Saturday. Last night Kyla screamed herself hoarse and didn’t sleep in any meaningful way between about 10.30pm and 5.30am. Since 7.30am, she has slept like a trench digger, pinned to my chest in a baby carrier, for over three hours now – it appears she is operating on the London time zone.)

Walking the boards at 4.30 this morning, piercing howl reverberating through the bones of my skull, happily my love for this little one only grew. Carrying her this morning has been a privilege. Meanwhile, Steph has devoured (yet another) hot cross bun, walked laps around her little tree in the back yard and gestured with a finger to her lips that I need to be quiet as Kyla is sleeping. And so the idea of Stephanie as a big sister grows.

The birth process was interesting; we often say that no two birth stories are alike. Kyla’s story was an epic 18 hour labour, the prospect of hormone injection, the facilitation of an epidural to allow that to occur, and then the news that the hormone would not be supplied after all. By this stage, following the epidural, contractions had dropped off and labour had stalled. Our choices? Wait until a different consultant surgeon began their shift (a further 10 hours away) and hope they would allow the hormone; or go for caesarean operation. Having been awake for 48 hours and in labour for 18, the choice was an easy one.

She won’t like me writing this, but I saw determination in Catherine that day that runs very deep. Deeper than any valley I know. I already knew of this characteristic, yet on this day, all my previous understandings of her strength were re-written. If Stephanie and Kyla inherent or learn this from their mother, they will know the value of perseverance and courage. Catherine is the one I choose to have by my side, let me say.

Other things to have happened this year have paled a touch with the events of this week. Suffice to say that teaching is challenging & fun & enjoyable & that life is beautiful.

adios amigos, dave-of-the-south

summer; ahhhhh

Happy new year there,
You know I found an explanation for why I much prefer to read printed words than to read anything on a computer screen. The writer of this article I read (printed, I might say), mentioned that reading printed words relaxes your eyes because they are concentrating on the contrast between passive black letters and a passive white background. Reading anything on a computer screen, however, and your eyes are being exposed to radiation; it’s the same idea as staring at a light bulb (though obviously not as intense). Have you ever had a computer terminal on at night in a dark room? Lots of radiation comin’ outta there.
I guess we’d all better print this onto recycled paper. Paperless office? Maybe we’re heading towards a prematurely blinded generation of office (&home office) workers.

This summer has been a wonderful time, making little trips from our base camp in Coburg. Rather than write about these adventures in too much detail, however, I’m going to take a different tack. Hopefully this will appease the restless thoughts I’ve had regarding people’s privacy & the propensity of internet nasties stalking the e-world.
No, I don’t think this is giving in to fear; though I’ve wondered that, too. I prefer to think of it as an excuse for creativity & the shedding of other people’s concerns.

You know I was once reprimanded by an acquaintance for posting e-photos that included images of her, without seeking her permission. I was taken aback. Was there now some international diplomatic crisis imminent? Was she facing mortal danger as a result? No, it was more to do with “respecting personal privacy.” If everyone’s personal privacy extended to this point, the world and our interactions in it would be very different. No group photos unless authority is signed across to the photographer. No attending major speeches/ concerts/ sporting events as your image may be shown by a broadcaster. Et cetera.

So with that, let me say that, personally, this summer holiday period lived up to stratospheric expectations. Christmas gatherings, a New Year’s gathering, two weddings and a week of walks, food, mimicking bird calls, “take two,” music, bushwalks, more food, conversation, toddler/crawler-watching, chocolate scones and splashing in the surf have left me feeling both wonderfully reflectively happy & completely at ease.

It seems, in writing that, that we’ve been busy. In reality, we have pottered about & taken each day as it has come. The summer has been a hot one and a dry one as we in Victoria know. Yet it has seen our little girl call us: “Mum-mum-ma” and “Dad-dad-da.” And yes, Juz, it makes my heart swell to bursting. When she sees me & points & calls Dad-dad-da, I could simply not be any happier at all. She is walking around. She is waking up earlier than ever. She is singing. She will learn/memorise anything you teach her in about 2 minutes flat. Even to mimic the call of a warbling magpie.

Catherine is back at work part time & is 30 weeks pregnant now. All going well and tiredness taking a firm grip. Not only is there a little one to grow, but there’s a 15-month-old to teach & supervise as well. I’ve been at home full time since the start of November. But next week I’m back at work. New job. New career, really. Teaching. If all the portents and harbingers of advice are correct, you may not hear from me until the Term 1 holidays. I understand I am about to become seriously busy. If that turns out to be true, and I do not post anything further at this site until early April, keep an eye out for message around that time; childbirth is forecast for 30 March.

Hope all is well in your patch for you & yours & for all of ours.
love dave.