Perhaps it’s just that things are simple at the moment. Straightforward.

I suspect parenting is never so simple as when children are 9 and 11. Young enough that there is joy in their childishness (Mum, are you wearing eyelash polish), old enough that there is joy in the adults they are about to be (Mum, shall I make us some scrambled eggs, you seem very tired). I’m sure that helps to make life simple.

I’m still a fish out of water as far as my immediate surroundings are concerned, and there are clouds of unfulfilled dreams, but day to day, I know where I am going and I know what to expect.

It must be ten years since I felt this way and if I felt it before that, I did not know that certainty was a gift. I confused certainty with bordem and I did what I could to put surprises between myself and future days.

I don’t do that any more, and I think that is what I will most enjoy about being 43.

Still, it’s a peaceful kind of job. Rhythmic. And once you begin it soothes in the way that all such rhythmic jobs soon soothe.

Youngest was in bed and eldest was in the loungeroom reading. It’s a new system we’ve got. It’s supposed to stop the pre-sleep fartarsing that always leads to shouting. Youngest just wants to sleep, but eldest wants to fartarse, so one of us (an adult) goes in and tries to use reasonable words in a reasonable tone and that works for five minutes and then there’s more fartarsing, and youngest needs his sleep and because he wasn’t getting his sleep, the mornings were awful. And it was getting worse and worse and worse and every night would end in a shouting match. So now, youngest goes to bed at 8 or around and eldest comes into the lounge to read.

So that’s how it came to be, me in the lounge, listening to Archie Roach while I wound hanks into balls and eldest sitting on the lounge reading.

‘I like that rhyme of Paradise, with very nice,’ he said.

‘That’s funny, because that’s the bit Dad doesn’t like. He thinks the rhyme is too obvious.’ (The mister wasn’t there to speak for himself, because he was in Oman.)

‘Doesn’t Dad know that sometimes that what rhymes need?’

I kept winding. I was aiming for five hanks into balls before I went to bed.

Sometimes eldest was reading, sometimes he was looking over at the stereo.

‘One thing isn’t obvious. Are these songs about having love or not having love?’

I only had three balls, but I stopped my winding and went to sit and cuddle my lad on the lounge. He’s not as young as he used to be, is he?

a blog load of books

I’m not quitting this blog, but the other one will be only about the things I read. I don’t think that means that I won’t write about things that I read here. Only that I’ll mostly write about the things I read over there.

The term finished at school, the mister decided to drain his annual leave, we went away and had a most excellent break, we came back, I had tonsillitis, the mister got sick, school went back, after school activities started, one lad forgot his saxophone, one his gym gear…my new year plans for world domination (which included paying more attention to my blog) got somewhat sidelined and have not quite got back on track.

I have lots of drafts behind the scenes of the blog. There’s one there about how surprising England is to an Australian whose first visit is in near middle-age. It’s surprising, because while we were so busy in Australia trying to be not English, the people in England kept being English so that now, if you’re an Australian and your visit to England is in near middle-age you can’t help but think, ‘Gosh! England is very English, isn’t it?’ That would be a not uninteresting blog post.

There’s another one about the lines at the Louvre which stretched for longer than any line I’ve seen, so we abandoned our plans to visit the Louvre and went instead to a bistrot for lunch and then, the following day, roused ourselves out of bed early so that we could be the first in line at the Musee Rodin. Only to find that the Musee Rodin had, that very day, closed for renovations until April, leaving the garden with a one euro entry fee as compensation.

There are several drafts about my re-entry to Abu Dhabi. Our three-year anniversary of landing here, the things I thought through the fog of tonsillitis, youngest’s current loveliness, in love, as he is, with the joys of life and being alive. There is even one about my follow-up to the dishy dermatologist and his surprise that I would share any of my health information on the internet.

I have no idea why I began those drafts and didn’t finish them. It’s part of my new year plans. To finish things.

French woman: ‘What have you done to your face?’
Me: ‘Oh, I just had a skin cancer removed.’
French woman: ‘OMG, are you all right? Are you okay? OMG!’
Me: Explains difference between melanoma and basal cell carcinoma.
French woman: Looks relieved, moves on.

Swedish man: ‘What have you done to your face?’
Me: ‘Oh, I just had a skin cancer removed.’
Swedish man: ‘OMG, are you all right? Are you okay? OMG!’
Me: Explains difference between melanoma and basal cell carcinoma.
Swedish man: Looks relieved, moves on.

Russian woman: ‘What have you done to your face?’
Me: ‘Oh, I just had a skin cancer removed.’
Russian woman: ‘OMG, are you all right? Are you okay? OMG!’
Me: Explains difference between melanoma and basal cell carcinoma.
Russian woman: Looks relieved, moves on.

Australian woman: ‘Did you get a skin cancer taken out?’
Me: ‘Yes.’
Australian woman: ‘Can I have your dermatologist’s number?’

You don’t believe me?

Follow this link, to a rather excellent-looking book, then come back here.

You’re back? Now, have a quick flick through my manuscript, the solid draft for my next ‘book’. Yes, the manuscript for which I have: become an orphan; abandoned my gorgeous, wonderful grandfather; compromised my career and financial autonomy; suffered depression, borderline alcoholism, near-divorce. (Okay, this is slightly exaggerated, but you know what I mean – I have suffered for my art). The manuscript which, after three long years I had only just three weeks ago said to the mister, ‘I have cracked it! I have got my story and it is nearly finished!’

It’s looking pretty good, isn’t it that manuscript? Yes. I especially love the title. You Can’t Hide in the Desert. It’s something my mum once said to me. Parts of that manuscript are excellent, no? The sharp and witty prose. The claustrophobic melancholy. The insights of a daughter reflecting on a life no different to her mother’s (“as strong and as independent and as autonomous as my mother had been, as strong and as independent and as autonomous as she had taught me to be, we had landed in the same place. Sitting on the lounge, knitting in our laps, wine glass in hand, waiting for our husbands to come home”). The individual woman’s experience painted universal.

An excellent story. Except…gah! Someone is about to publish a better one.

Now, look me in the eye (avoiding if you can, the stitched and still-slightly-bloody mess on the bridge of my nose, it’s fine it’s not hurting today though I wouldn’t say that I am looking gorgeous). And then tell me that in your career you have had a worse piece of luck.

And srsly? WTF? Moving to Adelaide? Who moves *to* Adelaide?

The goddess of careers, she is messing with my mind. It is as if she shot the arrow of fortune that was destined for me, but just as she shot, one of her kids, the one who is prone to accidents called, ‘Mum! Quick! I’m bleeding!’ and the goddess twitched as shot, leaving the arrow to graze, but not to pierce, me.

It’s fine. Really. I wouldn’t be writing this if I were still demoralised. I wouldn’t be telling you about it if I hadn’t started to laugh and if I hadn’t started to believe again that it will come. My story will come and I’ve even got a few ideas about how I can rescue it (but no, I am not going to start talking about them yet). I cannot possibly have gone through all of this and not come out with a story. Just, it’s gonna take a bit longer than I thought it was.

And in the meantime, I think that book which I linked to is going to be fascinating and I think you should all put it on your 2012 reading list. It is certainly on mine. (And no, no one paid me to write that).

…
PS I know I’m not really the unluckiest person you know – I mean, for a day or so I did think I was, and the only sound I could hear was the whooshing of my career as it got washed down the toilet. But I know that I’m not really. I know that far worse things happen to people in the workplace and that in the scheme of things this isn’t really a big deal. I do know that.

‘It’s a pretty city, but it’s boring, isn’t it?’

I forgive him his blunt assessment, because he’s German. That’s how we do things in Abu Dhabi. With cultural labels. ‘He’s German. She’s French. Sorry, it’s how I am. I’m Australian.’ It’s disconcerting at first, all this labelling, especially if you’ve spent years immersed in diversity and inclusion and cultural awareness training, but you get used to it. It’s disconcerting how easily you get used to it.

He says he’ll do a full body check of all my moles. But then, with a laugh, he says, ‘I bet you’re prudish, aren’t you? Why are Australians so prudish?’ Which makes me laugh, because I am a little prudish. And because, at the pool or beach, I have often wondered where Germans learn to be so devil-may-care about their bodies. Surely their climate promotes inhibition where Australia’s does not? I mean surely we wander around much more often much less dressed than they.

Except these days of course. In the wake of the slip slop slap and the hole in the ozone layer and no hat no play and so on. I never feel more Australian than when I’m at the pool almost entirely covered and the Europeans loll about in bikinis.

Which is not unrelated to the reason I am visiting the dermatologist and it turns out that the spot first spotted by youngest is, more likely than not, a basal cell carcinoma which is kind of unjust because I was, thanks to my red-haired once-burned father, wearing sunblock even while everyone else was still roasting themselves in coconut oil. Nonetheless I’m not surprised to discover it. A fair-skinned child of the Australian seventies, even one who did find sunbathing boring, is a likely skin growth candidate.

From what I’ve read on the internet the doctor tells me this pearly wee growth is harmless once removed. He will just give me a local anaesthetic, pop it out, ten minutes and, (bonus!) he promised not to make me ugly. Of course, I’d rather have a hole in my face than a malignant growth, but I’m vain enough that, given the spot’s position on the bridge of my nose, I was, ever-so-slightly concerned about how things would look.

Reading this, you might think it sounds like an inappropriate thing for him to have said. That he won’t make me ugly. But said in a German accent I found it kind and reassuring. You learn to speak a different kind of English living in a city like this.

Fark.

So, here’s to time and it’s healing powers.

And to friends who help time do its work.

But there’s one thing by which I am utterly perplexed. Julia Gillard’s position on gay marriage*. Or at least her position on her party’s position – I don’t think we should always equate a personal position with a political position after all. I’m sure she has her reasons for maintaining that the ALP should not support a change to the federal legislation, but they are unfathomable to me. Apart from the fact that it is wrong to be denying people equity under the law, wouldn’t you rather be the Prime Minister who was there when the law was changed rather than the Prime Minister who prevented the change.

I can’t see that her position is based on electoral expediency, because she did, after all, lead her party through the carbon tax, so I really do not understand. Unless maybe she simply doesn’t agree that Australian laws should recognise marriage between same sex couples. I suppose that could be it. She wouldn’t be the only one.

I suppose now, whatever her reasons, she’s so far in she can’t change her mind. I abhor our contemporary willingness to say ‘backflip’ every time a politician changes their mind. Of course there are principles and promises to which we must adhere, but surely it’s possible to be principled and reflective. Okay, that’s unrealistic. I guess another several thousand years and maybe our cortices will be evolved to the point that such things are possible.

In the meantime, how good would it be if the ALP’s national conference thingammijig managed to work their way around the dilemma of how to not embarrass their leader while at the same time getting the party to pass a resolution (or whatever it is they need to do) to have the legislation changed at a federal level. That would be grouse.

*understanding that ‘gay marriage’ is a less than ideal use of language used here to refer to the specific discussion of this specific position, and the civil union legislation still leaves many people excluded