Notes of Substance

I needed someone to share the house with Allen and me. I put an ad in the bookshop and Brendan came around. It was sunny and we stood in the garden. Yeah, move in as soon as you like, tomorrow’s fine, I said. Later, he told me that he was really stoned at the time. Later still, he told me that his ex-wife had a restraining order against him. And that women were manipulative bitches who used the legal system to persecute men. By that stage he had moved in. ‘I am not dangerous.’ My home had that house-by-the-sea feeling: the glassed-in sunroom at the back, the flapping fly-wire door. The paint colour must have been a bargain buy during the Depression, a peeling sea blue-green. The floors inside evoked the motions of the waves-troughs and crests everywhere. In the house that we shared, there was good food, a fireplace, lots of books and a guitar. There wasn’t much money. Allen was hardly ever around so Brendan and I spent our days together. We drank pots of exotic her...

"I got my arse groped on the tram the other day"  wrote Chloe Booker  in Daily Life a few months ago. Fuck that! I thought at the time.  Then today, I read of the  'predators honing their skills'  on trams and trains around Melbourne. These are the blokes who may then go on to worse assaults.  As I read these pieces, it made me reflect on all the times that men had threatened me, flashed at me, and made unwanted physical and verbal advances at me throughout my growing up.  In my case, many grimy, offensive things have happened, including turning up for work experience to find that the experience involved the boss pushing his hard dick into my back. In Chloe's case, she decided to call the behaviour out, and she walked away from it feeling liberated and proud: "I whizzed around and sent that excuse of a man into his own shame spiral with my loud public yelling." I got to thinking: why had I stayed silent so many times?  Maybe we '...

It's fun having a photographer in the family. I think... Then I see an illustration like this, found in an article today , and start laughing and cringing at the same time. Because for many years, my brother wanted us to do a full nude family portrait. Illustration by Chris (Simpson's artist), he's on Twitter here 'Calm down dad I only need to photograph your face' I was up for it, but my mum and dad were not so keen. So, it never happened, and while we're all still here, and could technically still do it, I sometimes feel a slight nostalgia for the picture that never was. We have, instead, had nude family runs, an awkward affair where my two brothers and I joined the kids in a race out and back at the beach shack. (Mum and dad did not take part.) As we neared the front gate, there was the frisson of possible exposure to the public, but we all made it around without injuries, though with some barely disguised discomfort. The original Nude Race...

Pip's class exercise, Taking Stock #blogwithpip: Place for taking stock Making : an effort Cooking : new things, and healthier food Drinking : red wine, on my own, and in company Reading: blogs, op-eds, and NOT my book club book Wanting: to exercise more Looking: more closely at the world around me Playing: guitar, well, dreaming of... Deciding: to take more chances Wishing: I was braver Enjoying: being on my own at times Waiting: too long Liking: the coast Wondering: how old I am Loving: sea air Pondering: what I want to blog for Considering: more study Watching: The Voice, with the kids! Hoping: to sing a song one day soon Marvelling: at the physicality of youth Needing: reassurance Smelling: salt air and seaweed Wearing: the same clothes, day after day Following: Twitter Noticing: kindnesses Knowing: times change and kids grow up fast Thinking: I must read that book Feeling: unfit Admiring: young people who care...

Sometimes a post just needs to be like a breath of air. For me! So time to breathe it in...  You'd think after nearly thirteen years of parenting that I'd realise how important and rejuvenating time alone can be. But no. Clearly I have not made this the priority it should be in my life. We all need to make time for ourselves, don't we? So why was it so surprising how energised and positive I felt after a solo stroll along the back beach this morning? 4W beach on a sunny winter's day Sea bubbles and slime green moss were on show at the low tide, and water ran through rock hollows, into and out of rockpools. Foam swirled and a few seagulls stood sentinel. Sea bubbles Rock nest The jagged spikes of reef poked up in between banks of sand. So pointed and irregular. So damaging. I imagined how a wave could crunch a surfer into the rocks. Merciless.   I marvelled at the engineering of steps by the ocean's carving force....

What a few days we've just had. Death, murder, church services, music, theatre, work and more music. Plus beer, red wine and bubbles. It was a sombre start, with a Requiem Mass for the soul of my uncle. Weird to be sitting in a church, with a bloke in robes going through the funeral motions. The songs sung were hymns, the congregation's voices were faltering and strained. At the end of the service, my uncle's voice, the once-young boy soprano, sang glorious sweetness into the Chapel. He would have been 12 years old at the time the songs were recorded. The vinyl crackle snapped and popped, adding depth across the decades. The souls rise. Photo Anna Sublet As the coffin was lifted, his voice sang the most heartbreaking Ave Maria. That's when the faces crumpled. That life, so fragile, now gone. We filed out, cheeks wet, into the icy air on the steps.  Afterwards, there was the gathering together. The reminiscing and the reconnections. The attempts to hold han...

I love wrapping things. I think I hide a nerdy craft fiend in my psyche, albeit a lazy one! This little post on wrapping using Washi tape made me excited to wrap. (Pip Lincolne, of Meet Me at Mikes , posted it on Twitter. Thanks Pip!) It's on the Notemaker blog which I think I'll definitely be coming back to visit.  Posted by guest Bec, it has some gorgeous suggestions, like little tips on making flags on string and using a 'heart-shaped punch' (love that phrase) on the tape to make stickers for decoration. I have moved on from the tape, as much as I love it, to other found objects these days. Paper from the Design Files House-oh my! I like to use all manner of recycled paper including newspapers, magazines, catalogues, flyers. I try not to use commercial wrapping paper, and find papers like Broadsheet to be a great size and image source. You could use the Astor film calendar, or road maps or fabric patterns. Fabric itself is great for bundling: one li...