Growing

For the kickass women of the world.

Those that are, and those that are growing up to be.

The daughters. The mothers. The sisters.

The fribblings – friends like siblings.

The wives, The girlfriends.

The aunts. The nieces.

The grand-somethings.

The young uns. The teens.

The women in your life.

Who love, lose, cry.

Laugh, heal, thrive.

Nurture. Create.

You.Are.Amazing.

As. You.are

Stronger than you know.

More beautiful than you think.

Worthier than you believe.

More loved than you can ever imagine.

Passionate above making a difference.

Fioery when protecting those you love.

Learning. Growing, Not alone.

Warm. Giving. Generous.

Quirky, Sexy, Funny. Smart.

Flawed. Whole. Scared. Brave.

And so, so, so. much.more

Be Strong. Be Confident. Be You.

~Copyright: Tia Sparkles Singh, 2011

There might be a bit more of that kind of stuff around here. Hope you don’t mind. Mothering a daughter has brought out the feisty woman-lover in me. And for the record, it’s not that I don’t love men. I do. I love them to bits actually. But girls, we have so much work to do in the learning and self-loving to make sure we etch out a space in this world to talk about how we want things to be. 

This is my beginning.

Running

This morning I woke up and went for a run. Just like that. Well, actually, it wasn’t just like that, because I haven’t run in almost 2 years and there will be aches and pains tomorrow and a few little blisters on unsuspecting toes but the important thing is that I ran. I put on my runners, turned on the tunes and shuffled out the door. It felt surprisingly good. For half an hour or so I forgot that I was tired, that our house needed vacuuming and that I hated my job and I just ran. Huffed and puffed my way around Royal Park, watched the sunrise over the city (my city!) and felt the prickling heat of what was to be a scorching summer day on my skin.

Ironically it also brought me back here.

I’ve found it hard to be here this year. I keep coming back in fits and starts. I really so very much want to be here but there has been so much going on and so many changes and well, I have a lot to say but a lot of it is the deeply personal thoughts of a half-enraged feminist Mama feeling just a little bit grumpy that there have been a few too many bumps in what was supposed to be a very smooth road this year.

But this morning I woke up and I went for a run. I stopped making excuses; I stopped saying “Maybe tomorrow”. I didn’t worry that E might wake or M would be disturbed by my 5.30am wake-up call, I just did it.  And it felt so good that I intend to do it again and hopefully soon; maybe not tomorrow but perhaps on Saturday or Sunday when the aches and pains have well and truly settled. One day I might even run in one of those Fun Run things.

And I’ll be blogging more too. No more excuses.

Just like that

And just like that she stopped being a baby and turned into a little girl - bangles and all.

Football

Strange things happen when you move back 'home' after a long jaunt overseas. Things that took on monumental importance while away suddenly seem insignificant. Like the AFL grand final, for instance. In 2009 I convinced some poor unsuspecting Americans to join me in an Irish pub full of Aussie expats to watch St Kilda take on Geelong. The 2010 draw between St Kilda and Collingwood found me in a dark, dank Hostel basement pretending it wasn't two degrees and five in the morning but a sunny, spring afternoon in beautiful, football-mad Melbourne. Admittedly last year I can't remember what I was doing but I had a two month old baby and in all seriousness it probably wouldn't have mattered which country I was in, the game would have been a crazy blur in which I pretended that I knew that a) I was awake and b) what I was watching. 

Anyway, given all this, you'd think that this year I might have organised a BBQ or gone to a pub to watch the game on the big screen. That I would have been genuinely excited to be back in Melbourne on 'the last weekend in September'. Turns out, not so much. In fact, surprisingly I felt quite ambivalent about the whole thing and, with Emilia being too little and Matthias not having lived in Melbourne long enough to be indoctrinated into the game, we went wine tasting instead.

 

Afternoon Tea

I'm all out of words tonight but I wanted to post again to keep the rhythm going.  E and I had afternoon tea with Mira and her Mum today.  Good company and deliciously strong lattes were the perfect antidote to a wet, cold afternoon.

And yes, she's just as cute in person.

Well, it took me a little longer to get back here than I thought. It's been a tough few months but slowly it feels like everything is settling down again.  The winter bugs that have been plaguing us all (and most especially E) seem to have disappeared with the advent of spring. We have a new home and for the first time in quite some while it actually feels like home.  It's 80% tiny workers cottage, 10% urban pad and 10% chaotic toddler warzone. There's still a bit of jostling about and the moving of 'stuff' before we are properly settled but it already feels right. There's a coffee shop around the corner, the market is a 10 minute walk, work a short bike ride. We've talked about selling the car... It's possible, perhaps, maybe that this might be the last move. For a little while anyway.

Wondering

I am wondering if I can quietly return to this place without too much fanfare and hoop-lah?  If I could just start again, in the middle, without too many whats, whys or hows. The middle is really where everything begins anyway. More-or-less.

Turns out that Canberra wasn't 'our place'. We're city people really and despite our initial attempts at trying to make it feel like home, it just wasn't and was never going to be. In the end we moved. It was complicated and the details are still being ironed out. I'll miss Canberra's sunsets and endless horizons but I'm already loving having coffee at the the end of the street and a milkbar around the corner.  Like I said; we're city people really.

For a while I stopped taking photographs. I picked up my camera again on holidays. It felt good. I got my camera-eye back and I thought about blogging.  And so I thought, perhaps, that I'd return.  Camera in hand. Quietly. Slowly.