Embracing the Crusty

I was tired last night because we had been up the mountain to our friend’s place, celebrating the end of her brother’s PhD and wishing him well as he set off on another adventure – trekking through Nepal, cycling through Europe, all with his new Swedish gal. We lit a fire and sat around watching the sun go down behind the smoky green hills of our valley, playing guitar and ukulele, drinking mulled cider. Besides Pete's bum wiggling version of Funky Town I quite liked the endless G-C medley, morphing from the Rolling Stones to the Boys Next Door and ending up in spandex and big hair - it may have been Poison. The kids ran and played and jumped on the trampoline, staying up late, banding together in a big tribe, lighting the darkness with their torches. Memories are made of this.


I have blog envy. I wish I had a more impressive blog, like this one. More poetic, more visual, more inspiring. I was reading it the other day and I got all weepy – nothing too serious, more along the lines of a Leunig-it’s-just-so-beautiful, gentle weeping. I haven’t always been a weepy person but something changed when Noah was born. Suddenly my tolerance for violent films plummeted; I had to be careful watching the news given their obsession with graphic depictions of tragedy; and I can be listening to music, so very beautiful, and then out of the blue I’m having a little weep.


Em made Spanish Macaroons this morning, multi-tasking baking and skin care, scrubbing the sooty mould off some of our home-grown oranges so she could zest them. Embracing the crusty for it is what we have, letting go of the need for perfection. Like my blog, my marriage, my life. I wouldn’t change a thing (Em says except for drawers in the kitchen that work). She was making them for the Annual Pappinbarra Fathers Day Cricket Match which was on today with teams allocated depending on where you live, tarmac vs the dirt. It worked out at about 30 a side, everyone on the field at once, the pitch shortened when the little kids bowled, longer for the steam trains. Backyard rules apply – on the road on the full is six and out, retire at fifteen and you can’t get out without scoring. Don’t spill your beer.


Noah wandered around with the other kids, ignoring the cricket and climbing the enormous pile of logs that have been pushed up from when they cleared a space for the new fire shed. Despite other parents telling me they wouldn’t let their kids climb on them I let him anyway – he needs to take risks and discover his limits. And he did. He fell off and got wedged in amongst the branches, scared and scratched, crying. In need of a cuddle but OK.

“I’m grateful that we goed on that big pile of wood again.”
(Confused? Look)