Storytime

Mother's day, to me, is an interesting mix of good and bad, guilt and pleasure. There is this HUGE expectation that you (if you are a mother) will be force fed breakfast in bed (ugh the crumbs!) given presents of flannelette pyjamas, fluffy slippers and super flammable dressing gowns. If you have a mother (most folks do) then you are to give all of the above to her as well. With a bunch of petrol station chrysanthemums, bought on an impulse of 'oh crap it's mother's day'. I find it interesting in so many ways. When you become a mother, you are instantly defined. MOTHER.  And for a lot of us, we become lost in that title. Especially if that is what we focus on. Our world revolves around our children. And if we have no outside job, we become very internal. Our world becomes smaller and smaller...and sometimes, honestly, it feels as though there is no way out.  Our role in society is that of mother. We are known as M-------- and L------'s mothe...

To the blog. Yep, two years ago this week I decided to put fingers to keyboard and send out into the ether my thoughts. And apparently I'm still thinking. Why did I begin? A friend of mine, Tiggy Johnson  , then editor of Page Seventeen magazine,   author, poet, writer, mother, wife, crafter...had been blogging for a while and I was interested in the process.  My first thought was how on earth could you write something new, hopefully something interesting, each week.... and something that somehow (and sometimes very tenuous) linked to the craft of writing. Surprisingly it has been easy (well up to now it has been). Because life is so varied, I find there are so many opportunities that can be written about. And since I am always struggling along with my writing, I find it good to put it out there. The rejections, the successes, the times I want to hit my head against a wall because nothing is working out like I thought it would. At times it ...

My mother was a tall dark haired woman who loved black jellybeans, cacti and Johnny Cash. She was also very artistic with a talent for sketching and painting. So when Dad visited the other week with a bag of 'bits and pieces' there was much laughter as we discovered - # Whitcombes storybook of Hiawatha for 6d (sixpence) # Bible she received from her parents for her 13th birthday # Assorted jewellery including clip on earrings (she was too scared to get her ears pierced) # Plastic doll wearing Carlton colours # and a Diploma of Proficiency from the Art Training Institute, Swanston Street Melbourne- listed as 'Australia's Foremost School of Commercial Art' dated March 1957 There were also some pieces of her artwork We also discovered an old exercise book. She had copied out poems by Keats and Wordsworth, even a Shakespeare sonnet or two. But we also discovered two poems----The Wild Dogs and The Bushland---that were written by her. None of us knew that ...