good news

my purse is found…intact…it seems to have been on an odd journey, but anyway, it’s found

And, I must add, it’s true that the sentimental bits and pieces were the most important, and I can’t tell you how pleased I am to have that piece of paper with the most adorable letter E you ever did see, but losing all that money did make me feel sick in my stomach too. I think perhaps because I had only just been to the ATM, and hadn’t bought a single piece of the week’s shopping or the petrol or the lollies or any of the many, many things two hundred dollars can buy.

On the road from Carrickalinga to Adelaide

I wanted to show you this photo which I took on the trip home last Sunday after the last in a long string of this year’s Significant Family Events.

Each of these events has been emininently bloggable in it’s own way. Filled with life and family and the endless layers of being alive that such events encompass.

But none of them have been my story to tell. I have taken my own story to each event of course, and brought my own stories away. But they weren’t about me those days, and it’s one of the things we’re trying to teach my eldest boy, you can still be included and be on the side. They can’t have it without you, but it is theirs.

It’s one of the things about blogging, negotiating what’s yours to include and yours to leave out. So I’ve written about them in my journal. It was boynton, gave the advice that you should still keep a personal (offline) journal (apologies that I have got no idea where to start looking to find that particular entry, boynton), and I would say for me, it was excellent advice.

Which leaves you with only with this photo taken at the end of a most significant day. I made an effort with several other photos, and just snapped this. This is the one that sums things up the best because at the moment, there are two layers of life which can be separated, but can’t.

There is speed, but there is solidity; I am out of focus, but in control. There are sunsets, and sometimes they hold the light. There is Salvation Jane which is beautiful, but makes me sneeze and strangles the countryside. There is a horizon, but it’s skewed.

If you need me, I’m in the corner, wiping up dog wee.

Trip to the market I wish I’d never had

Today, somewhere between the ATM and Lucia’s, my purse – containing the two hundred dollars I was going to use to buy things including fruit and lollies for my youngest boy’s birthday party (the first he’s had); and the piece of paper on which my eldest boy wrote his name for the very first time – disappeared. Off the face of the earth.

That was about fifteen minutes after I scraped the car door against the post while I parked. It would cost several hundred dollars to repair, but doesn’t knock several hundred dollars off the value of the car. That’s the kind of car it is.

On my way out, I said to the woman in the booth ‘I’ve lost my purse and my ticket was in it’, and she was very kind.

The mister dropped everything to come and pay for the lunch youngest boy and I had already ordered before I realised my purse was gone. When I saw him I cried.

I’m a bit of a wimp like that. But two hundred dollars. Gee, it’s a lot. And he’ll never write his name for the first time again.

At dog obedience, South Parklands

Being as I am, petrified of dogs – particularly medium dogs, and especially large dogs, and including dogs that bark as well as dogs that don’t, and not excluding dogs that are on leads, and encompassing dogs that jump, walk, run and sit, and not forgetting pedigree dogs, bitza dogs and any dog that was ever born – I take deep breaths and tell myself dog people are just cat people but with dogs.

Things you learn. After the fact.

I notice, when we are out on our walks, that there’s a lot of people want to give our dog a lot of love. And very often they say ‘oh, I used to have a beagle’ and they smile at you and they cuddle the dog and then they put him down and they have memory in their eyes.

And then they smile at you again.

And you can’t help thinking what have we done, but you’ve had him for a week and you’re already in love with the slope of his nose and the tip of his tri-coloured tail and the way that he snores when he’s in your lap at night.

Dog obedience starts tomorrow night. Which is too late for the white campers, but hopefully in time to save my black boots.

On a five year old

I look into his face sometimes. He lets me still, he’s five years old. His skin, his eyes, his thoughts are clear. He holds me when I hold him. He strokes my cheek like I stroke his. We read. He says ‘another one?’ and I say yes, because he’s warm and he holds my other hand. He laughs like no one else can laugh, and whatever else is in my mind, whatever fears, regrets, or stress, I laugh.

And I’m telling you this, because just now, he has yelled at me, and roared, and stamped his foot and slammed the door.