Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER.
We Gotta Get Out of this Place
What to do next?
A very disappointing but not altogether unexpected outcome occurred last night.
Our life decision – to change, to move on, has been temporarily thwarted. Inspired to leave our comfortable certainty, by that great song “We gotta get out of this Place, a great cover by “The Angels” even better original by the Animals, I’m old enough to remember both, So China Beach era.
A setback for sure, but not the end of the story.
The ideal job gone, my resignation from a toxic, rule driven workplace stalled, don’t for one minute think that I don’t like my work, I love it too much and I seem to break all the rules, I care to much, I feel to much, I am not taking care of myself. Words that rankle from my supervisor’s, I am simply over too many rules, and restrictions.
We have planned the change, it will happen, just need to mind map, to work out where and how?
Our family life is hard, we have been through a lot, it is complex, but whose life is a breeze, we all have character building families, who for better or for worse, made us who we are today.
I think what we don’t want to become, is negative, to look for blame, or blame our selves entirely for the choices or the parenting skills, we are the ones who are wearing the consequences of those choices, no one else.
My partner of over over 30 years and I love and share life, experiencing a kind of privileged existence sometimes. We don’t have the expensive car, or the modern home, but we have spent our money on sharing with the kids the diversity of work and travel, jumping into a light plane and landing two hours later in another state on a whim to see and be and just experience all there is for a short time.
So a new Plan is hatched, we actually know that life and family with elderly parents and dependent adult kids in their 20s is like I said complex, we don’t have the answers, we walk around the park, banging on about life and what if’s? How can we be fair,? how to share the handouts to each kid equally, when they have vastly different needs, a conundrum!
Life is vastly different from the one we had imagined, Who would have thought what our future held in store? Would we change anything? No.
We have our health, albeit supplemented with too much food and wine at times. We have choice, my partner has a mad passion that peeks and wanes with the years, that as he struggles with loss of family and friends he finds his way again and again, back to what makes him happy.
I would like to find my passion, so today in our writers room, cozy and listening, I realised there is a spark. In our group there are so many academics. I was a little awestruck, overwhelmed somewhat. Wondering what is my value to this esteemed, bunch of powerful and interesting women. But, hey, I have a growing sense of self, and am learning all the time of our innate abilities are to be shared, not everyone is the same.
I was asked a question by our esteemed leader today, Catherine, prodded and poked at the edges, and I blurted out the whole lot, well not all, that is for the stories I will write and not share.
So for now, I will plan, I will plan to travel, to “Cull the Crap” out of my life, my cupboards, my laptop, and the things I don’t need. I collect from ages past and cannot give them up without a fight, or a sentimental meltdown. I might need it, or miss it, Is this hard copy just solid memories that if I forget I can touch it? or is it simply I hoard all things of trivia. I just need to sort and shift it,
I sure don’t want my kids to put it all in the tip.
We all have needs, a hierarchy of sorts, I don’t know much about this Maslo or his theory, and who gives a rats if I don’t. But I do know I need to belong, I like food and drink, I am comfy in shelter and maybe even a tent, but here is the thing, I just need to do it somewhere else than here. Dream On……
Just in a days work..
I take off my shoes and leave them, tap lightly on the door, ring the bell and wait, and wait bit more, until finally a bleary eyed Mother in law who does not speak english peeks through the wire door. I cannot see her until the door swings wide, as I smile and introduce myself she ushers me into towards a dark and stuffy bedroom.
The doorway is cluttered, obviously they have just moved inhere recently, I walk with bare feet around the dog bowls, stepping carefully over the water on the floor from where the dog just slobbered.
I make a mental note, the dog should be outside, that is what we ask over the phone before we arrive, a rule for our safety, but I like dogs! I’m happy he is inside, he will be a talking point, a means to establish our conversation.
Knowing I should have kept my shoes on, I’m reminded of the OH&S rules, but culture prevailed and I knew the consequences, or rather ignored them.
There are food bowls and water bottles that mum has half consumed over the past few hours, all brought in by her Mother in law who is there to care for her family. I know she is eating well, and feel relieved as some households may only have the bare ingredients to make a meal.
There is very little furniture in this house, this is her first baby, a year on from the elaborate wedding photo that proudly adorns the hallway wall.
Mum is propped up on a white plastic picnic chair, the ones you can buy at Bunnings. She greets me awkwardly and sits back tenderly on a small flattened cushion. Indicates a small wrapped infant in the middle of the bed, his arms flung out in sleepy repose, when I drop my bag and other paraphernalia onto the bed next to him he startles and his little arms jolt and fall back, he stirs, blinking, exactly what I hoped would happen, I need him to be awake for my visit, but I don’t ask Mothers to wake their sleeping baby.
There is a vast array of baby stuff, pillows, and blankets, toys and presents all dumped in the cot at the side of the bed. I know immediately she is not sleeping her new baby in the cot, and imagine she disclosed this to the visiting health nurse as I see out of the corner of my eye a SIDS brochure on the bedside table, I know she has had the talk, and understands the sleep safe guidelines, or maybe not? Lots of rules.
The cot is for show at this stage and the baby is held to sleep in Grandmothers, Dad’s arms and on mothers chest. I want to let her know it is ok to lie down on the bed to feed, to get off the chair to put her baby to the breast while lying comfortably on her side. That her baby will most times, search and nuzzle and find his way to feed himself, and in time her peri will heal and she again will be comfy. She does not need permission from me, I wont be telling her how there is a better way to settle the baby in the crib, or the protocol is…. I wont be asking her to adapt to our western method of separation, unless of course she asks for help or through fatigue and exhaustion she asks for any alternative.
My job is to normalise, to support and allow her to explore her way, when that hostile, raging little red faced baby overwrought with stimulation, lays quietly on her chest his nappy on and singlet off, so he can feel her heartbeat and smell her skin, when he quietens with his little pursed lips, licking and feeling his way, when the pain subsides and the stories begin. Mum may feel the unconditional love, she may not! We are here not to judge, but what ever the feeling, It will be an overwhelming sense of awe that she birthed this baby into her care, to nurture, to grow and share and just be.