The gathering (Life- observation)

Round the fire they gathered huddled by the flames, waiting for the old man to begin.
He would take them on a journey, he the dreamer of dreams, the seeker of wisdom who sings the melodies of truth.
To reach their souls with his…
To beat his drum in time to the pulse of the earth spirit, to the very heartbeat of each and every one present.
And in his haunting melodies there would be a unity found, a one-ness...understanding...even the little ones, yet to learn the ways of the world, would feel it.
It wouldn't matter that he forgot the words and improvised using melody alone.
It wouldn't matter that at times his voice grew hoarse and strained.
Transfixed they would gaze upon his toothless mouth, his bright black eyes almost hidden in the furrows of his wrinkled brow, and they would listen with their hearts.
And he would sing......and captivate his audience with his song.
Songs that were lessons.
Songs that taught values and principles so as to keep the tribe safe from the world beyond, and each other.
He would play.... and one by one, filled with the joy of the rhythm and the melody they would rise before the fire and dance.
Under the moon, under the stars, the stories of life, love and loss would be told.
And when it was over there was a communication shared.
A journey traveled.

And then man invented the Music industry.

Roast beef revenge. (Life -humour)

I used to love cows.
There’s nothing as picturesque as seeing a beautiful green country meadow dotted with gorgeous black and white dairy cows.
Many a time I’ve yelled at my husband to “stop the car!” so I could jump out and photograph them and then lingered a while trying to lure them over to the fence by waving fistfuls of long grass.
Such timid things though dairy cows, with such amusing faces. They always look kinda dopey to me with that stunned mullet look of theirs.
And when they all start mooing together…..well, it always made me smile.

That was until I discovered “outback cows”
Now they’re a different bunch altogether!
Tougher, meaner and leaner. Brown leathery cows coated with red outback dust… but I still liked seeing them and photographing them on our travels anyway.
More bulls out there and the cows, so I discovered, can have horns too!
If you were to make a cartoon about cows these outback cows would be the “cowboy villains” with guns in both pockets spitting in the dirt as they swaggered down the dusty street ready for a fight!
But I didn’t fully understand just how different these cows are until one very frightening experience occurred.

We were on our way through Western Australia and it happened to be a spectacular wildflower season out there in the desert so I was hopping in and out the car with my video camera madly filming all of the beautiful scenery as we drove.
It was amazing seeing such an otherwise desolate place bursting with little pockets of vivid colour!

My husband and the kids had grown tired of the frequent stops and would sit in the car and wait for me while I fluffed around filming whatever it was that captured my attention along the way.
I had seen a rather nice mound of hills in the background with clumps of beautiful pink flowers in the foreground that I decided would be nice to film, so once more my husband stopped the car and I trotted off with my tripod and camera towards the spot.

As I walked I was pulling out the legs of the tripod and looking for the best place to set up my gear, all the while focused on those lovely pink flowers.
So absorbed in what I was doing I failed to notice, at first, that from behind a line of scrubby bushes a herd of wild outback cows had appeared.
Perhaps they had heard the car approaching and were curious…..then maybe they caught sight of me and were disturbed by the rare sight of a human – especially one carrying strange equipment.
Whatever the case, the point is that they SAW me before I saw them and for some unfathomable reason began running towards me at full pace.

Out of the corner of my eye all I saw was a cloud of dust appear sporting dozens of very sharp pointy horns that were approaching with frightening speed!
It was a silent stampede. Not one of them was mooing in alarm or warning, which made it even freakier!

Time seemed to stand still in that moment.
My brain shouted “Find a tree to hide behind!” but alas only a few twiggy bushes stood between me and them!
My only option was to turn and flee back towards the car which somehow, with the tripod and camera balanced in one hand, I did!
As I turned I saw these cows ALSO turn to follow my direction which was a terrifying sight!

I was being chased!

I tell ya, I ran as fast as my wobbly legs would carry me, screaming like a banshee all the way!
The prospect of all those pointy horns and very hard hooves thundering towards me was enough for me to nearly pee myself in fright!

My husband and kids heard my screams and thought perhaps I’d seen a snake.
By the time I came into view and they saw the state I was in, fleeing in absolute terror, they thought it must have been a bloody BIG snake!

I jumped in the car huffing and wheezing and managed to get out one word.
“Cows!”
My husband looked back to where I’d been running from and there by the side of the road was the herd of cows standing dead still just staring at our car.
They looked just as cows do……pretty dopey, a bit perplexed.
Certainly NOT like the wild evil beasts with glowing red eyes, glinting white razor sharp horns and spurs on their hooves that had just been terrorizing me moments before!

“They…..they were ….CHASING me! Those cows!” I puffed.
“They were AFTER me! Wanted to GET me!”

Of course, to this day I have never been quite believed.
“They were AMBLING after you darling!” My husband chuckles.
But no, they weren’t!
They joined forces in a silent conniving almost military way and targeted me – the strange human in their territory and I’m sure meant to make mincemeat out of ME!

I don’t look at cows the same way anymore.
Oh I still love dairy cows and continue to stop and say “hello” to THOSE cows.
But there has to be a fence.
A good sturdy fence, preferably with barbed wire, that stands between me and THEM.
And I don’t see their expressions as so “dopey” anymore because I reckon there’s more to a cow than what meets the eye.
And those outback cows?
Well, I’ll leave them to the likes of John Wayne and Clint Eastwood I think.

Passed your use by date?(Life -reflective)

I was standing in front of the stove cooking dinner when my eleven year old daughter, reading a form that needed to be filled in for school, asked...
"What do I write for mum’s occupation?"
"Nothing....mum doesn't do anything." said my sixteen year old.
Whirling around with a wooden spoon in my hand I snapped....
"That's right…”She who sits among bon bon wrappers on the couch watching Days of our Lives! Yup! That’s me!”
"I didn't mean THAT mum!" said the sixteen year old rolling her eyes.

It made me angry and depressed all the same.
What has my life become?
Who AM I?
Why am I here?
Questions I find myself asking time and time again as I stir yet another pan of gravy and think about the fact that I am now officially peri menopausal, my boobs have headed south, my belly is soft and squidgy, my **** is melting down the backs of my thighs and I have completely lost touch with "me" - the person in my other life.... 20 years BC. (Before children)

The other day I found myself preparing to photograph a sweet potato that is growing "vines" in my kitchen.
I looked at it sitting there among the onions in a bowl on top of the microwave and thought it was the most amazingly artistic thing I'd seen in a while.
The colours.....lime green awash with subtle shades of dusky pink on the foliage, reaching up the wall(yes the thing is growing leaves) was just beautiful.
To think that left on its own accord, with no water or earth or even much sunlight, it was beginning a new life there among the onions.....well, it struck me as being amazing.
(Certainly a lot prettier than the time I discovered the corpse of an aubergine under the kitchen sink.)

"Why are you taking photo's of a sweet potato?" my children asked as they caught me arranging the vines against a brightly painted wall.

And in that moment.....I knew.
I have lost the plot.
I really have become the person I feared I would become.
A droll housewife who gets excited over "passed their used by date" vegetables.

What becomes of us?
Those that choose to stay home and raise their children, to forgo a career where they can interact on a daily basis with their peers, get paid for their work, feel as though they have a true purpose in life as a contributing member of society, and have something to TALK about in a gathering of other intellectual adults?
Do we wither away, our brains atrophying in the mundane repetition of daily household chores?
Every day the same dishes sit in the sink waiting for me to wash them up, the same dirt on the floor walked in by the dogs and the kids waits to be swept up, the same tinkle drops on the toilet seat wait for me to inadvertently sit in them, the same fluff gathers on the carpet, the same bench tops needing wiping, table that needs clearing, garbage needs taking out, washing needs folded, the same kids come home everyday with the same gripes, the same arguments, the same shoes and school bags left for me to trip over them in the hall.....
At night the same complaints meet me at the dinner table, the same protests of "but it's not my turn to wash up tonight!", the same painful grade three reading books I have to sit and listen to as my mind turns to mush...and in bed at night....the same penis pokes me from behind.
The same, the same the SAME!

I am not the same.
I am changing.
I only have to look in the mirror to see that.
I'm now in my forties!
The same age I remember being my parents and their friends being as I approached puberty, and thought they were SO old. Past it.....their lives OVER.
And here I am - "there" where they were and how quickly I have traveled here.

I remember the first dawn I spent as a new mother lying in the hospital bed staring at my brand new infant feeling this incredible sense of overwhelming joy.
*I* had made this perfect creature. ME!
What I felt was as close to bliss as I have ever experienced and I knew I would love her with all of my soul and I did and I still do... all four of them.
I know I have the most valuable (though undervalued) job on earth, being a parent and I would not change this whole journey even if I could, but there comes a time, in every woman’s life where a sweet potato brings you back to reality.

I am an intelligent, creative thinking, feeling PERSON.
I am NOT "she who sits among bon bon wrappers on the couch".
I DO have a life - one that needs tending.
My soul that has outgrown the comfortable clothes of motherhood.
Screams for high heels and a loud red dress!
Six hours a day, kid free, where I can and should be nurturing my own needs!

I look at that sweet potato....
Neglected and ignored it has sat in that bowl on top of my microwave, and it HAS changed over time.
Soft and wrinkly it has become....and I could have thrown it out,but I'm glad I didn't, because it has given me such inspiration in the lesson that it teaches...

Even things that are passed their use by date can, all on their own, become beautiful amazing things.

My small conquests (Life-humour)

I don't know when I lost my power to fulfil the fortnightly role of doing the family grocery shopping but somehow I did.
It was an insidious thing which eventually led to my position as principal shopper being completely overthrown.
This doesn’t make one bit of sense since I am the one most often in the kitchen doing the cooking and therefore should have some say in which foods are purchased.

My husband is an extraordinary cook.
Everybody tells him this.
This is because when HE cooks (occasionally on weekends and when we have guests) he goes out and purchases all the ingredients necessary for his favoured dish, unlike myself who must root through the cupboards looking for something vaguely exciting to work with.
(You don’t think we ALWAYS have fresh prawns chilling in the fridge or vanilla beans on hand to flavour your coffee do you?)

This overthrowing of power began the moment I allowed my husband to push the shopping trolley.
All that power must have gone to his head, and since he has discovered the Aldi stores, life has not been the same for our family.

My husband has a precise plan of action when it comes to the shopping weekend.
He will lounge around in front of the TV first thing in the morning drinking copious amounts of coffee, take a leisurely shower and sometime around noon he will suddenly spring into action.
He will be gone all afternoon, not returning until dinner time and when he does I am the one expected to pack all the shopping away, which is fair enough since he has obviously been "slaving away for hours fighting with all the other shoppers in the aisles."

It's never very exciting though, my job, packing away the groceries, and this is because I find myself stacking EXACTLY the same items on the pantry shelves every single time he returns.
The same tinned tomatoes, the same packets of fettuccini, the same "smooth" peanut butter, the same chicken flavoured two minute noodles...
It's all EXACTLY the same as two weeks before!
I find no excitement... no joy in filling the shelves with the same old, same OLD!
My taste buds have withered, atrophied.
They are in a sad state of apathy begging for some stimulation!
And for that matter, it’s becoming a bit tiresome being victim to the frequent fettuccini avalanches that occur (because I do not LIKE fettuccini) and keep throwing the regular fortnightly packets that he brings home, way up on the shelf out of sight and out of mind.
Well, that is until they fall down and hit me on the head.

You see, my husband sets off each time with an exact list in his mind of what to bring home that never varies, even if we already HAVE it at home, and what’s more he knows exactly how much it is and precisely where to find it!
After one such shopping day the children and I counted fourteen 500 gram containers of Aldi brand margarine in the fridge, twelve cans of diced tomatoes,ten jars of peanut butter,eleven cans of mixed beans,twenty packets of fettuccini and twelve unopened packets of chicken flavoured two minute noodles, each containing six serves of noodles.
In the freezer were the same neatly separated freezer bags containing, chicken, chicken and more chicken.
The same frozen Aldi peas...the same frozen Aldi beans.

We stared listlessly at the contents of the pantry.
We were depressed...more than that we had simply lost the will to EAT!
Not wanting to offend my husbands sense of duty at undertaking this somewhat mundane task or make him feel inadequate I said to him...
"You suck at doing the shopping."
"Yeah dad, you really suck!" chimed in the children.
"We want something DIFFERENT to eat!" we told him.
The next week he came home with several packets of spaghetti instead of fettuccini and one jar of CRUNCHY peanut butter instead of smooth.
(Oh my, such daring!)

Deciding to take matters into my own hands I recently decided to accompany my husband on one of his shopping trips to subtly try and introduce some variety into our diets.
"I'm sure there are other animals on this planet we can eat besides chickens!" I grumbled.
My experience that day was certainly an eye opener as it became apparent that my husband had perfected the humble grocery shopping expedition down to a T.
It was regimented...disciplined, a certain order about it that I have not before witnessed in my husbands behaviour.
(At least not in the way in which he attends to his household chores…of which there is one – taking the garbage out.)

We began with a visit to Aldi and I was left behind almost running to keep up as he transformed himself into this super efficient shopping machine, carefully calculating the price of each item adding it up as he went, comparing prices, finding the cheapest deals, stacking the trolley neatly so everything fitted just so.
If I picked something different up to place in the trolley he would pounce on me..."How much is THAT? I haven't budgeted for THAT!"
At the checkout he demonstrated even more organizational skill by stacking the conveyer belt with the heaviest items first to be put in the bottom of the trolley, the frozen things together, the lightest items at the end to go on top. (Unlike me, who just throws it all on there and hopes for the best as the checkout person hurls it at me at the end with lightning speed.)
Each time I tried to help I was impatiently pushed away "No! That doesn't go THERE!" he would say.
(What a pity he is not as organised with his dirty clothes in the bedroom. The poor man still can’t figure out where the laundry is or what it’s for.)
His efficiency was simply astounding.
All the other women in the supermarket stood in awe batting their eyelashes at a man with such admirable shopping prowess.
I wanted to throw up.

After packing the Aldi shopping in the car, where I was once again forbidden to help, (because “there is a certain WAY it gets packed into the car”) it was onto the next supermarket – Coles.
"That’s where I buy the chicken if it's on special." he told me marching full speed ahead.
While we were in Coles and he was checking out the price of fruit and vegies to see if he could get a good bargain I tried to slip a packet of instant cauliflower sauce into the basket which to my surprise caused him to experience a small conniption right there in front of the onion stand.
"I DON'T buy packet sauces from HERE! I get THOSE in Woolworths!" he exclaimed, shaking his head at me as though I was a retard.
The cauliflower sauce was slapped back on the shelf and I was met with a very ugly glare.
Well, this did it for me.
I grabbed the sauce and placed it back in the basket.
"I want it." I said quietly.
"Not from here!"
"I want THIS packet of sauce from THIS supermarket!" I said gritting my teeth.
"You can't have it!" he hissed.
We struggled physically for a few moments playing tug of war with the packet of sauce until finally I gave up and let him put it back on the shelf. (People were beginning to stare.)
As soon as his back was turned though I picked it up and hid it behind my back and when he was preoccupied over the price of chicken breasts I tucked it into the basket where it remained unnoticed until we got to the checkout.
"I am never taking you shopping with me again!" he said as the packet of cauliflower sauce was scanned by the checkout lady.
Smiling smugly, I flounced ahead.

On we went, to the third supermarket of the day...Woolworths, where he gets the bulk of the meat and kitty litter.
The same scenario ensued with me being scolded for choosing things that were either "not in the budget" or "cheaper elsewhere", reprimanded for "touching the trolley!" and just generally ignored.
It had become a tiresome, frustrating expedition and I found myself fighting a losing battle against this super organized shopping freak.
By the time we got to the markets hours later and he went about his meticulous system of purchasing the fruit and vegies I had given up.
We drove home in silence.

The very few items I had managed to sneak into the trolley were received with much excitement by the children.
"See! Mum knows what we like! Please, oh please dear father let mum do the shopping next time!"
Well, I did for a while, and the children were much happier,but then somehow, as time has gone by very insidiously he has begun to take control once again.
The most recent, and final straw for me was when I caught my husband in the supermarket, counting out twenty button mushrooms, each to be put in six separate paper bags.
"Portion control" he mumbled, when I asked what on earth he was doing!

It was with great delight that I only used seventeen mushrooms that night as I cooked dinner....and made sure I told him so.

We went shopping today.
My husband is not speaking to me this afternoon.
When I commented on the way there that I wanted to try some brown rice for a change he nearly had a heart attack.
"Do you KNOW how much more EXPENSIVE brown rice IS!"
I thought we would have to pull the car over and stop he was so overwrought.
It was a LONG day.
"We're going to run out of food this week...I'm telling you!" he warned me when we finally got home.
(We won't, but if we do we have enough fettuccini to kill a person…literally!)
When he is not looking the children will once more come to me and whisper...
"Thank you....oh thank you dear mother for saving us from all that sameness! You are the BESSSST!"

And I will serve them brown rice instead of white and rejoice at these… my small conquests!