The Urge to Iron

When the urge strikes, it is usually when it is stinking hot and sticky. A gigantic overflowing basket of  pillowcases, teatowels and sheets has been sitting on the bedroom floor for two weeks. That's when I started cleaning out the linen cupboard with great excitement, but got bored after the first lot of fabric remnants. Today, however, I set to work on the pillowcase mountain while listening to nana-songs on the radio, all boiling  and sweaty. I picked up most of these old pillowcases at opshops and haven't really  ever taken the time to look at them before. So much detail. Pretty, and they feel like summer.

Thing-A-Day

So I have signed up for 'Thing-a-day 2010'. Here's what it says: 'Thing-a-day is a yearly creative sprint where participants commit to creating one new thing a day and post it on a collective blog.' Now that I am signed up and raring to go, I have to decide what I'm going to do. Or do I? Some kind of plan might be good, otherwise I predict a lot of dithering. One thought was to work on an illustrated alphabet. One letter a day fits nicely into the month of February. I started an alphabet painting ages ago for L's room and then decided I didn't like it much, apart from little bits of it. It's a start, anyway. Why should it be scary? Maybe it's the public-ness of it. Time to knock that one on the head, I say!

Today

Today I am not the mother who is gracious, happy and thankful for all the profound things her sweet child has taught her in life. No. Today, I am this mother. Still, for a more optimistic view of things, have a look at this. It's the Week 2 completed mission from MISSion Amy K.R, 'Things We've Learned from our Kids.' Ggrrrr.

Down the Line

L is on the Overlander train (from Auckland to Wellington: 12 hours away,  681 km of track, 352 bridges and 14 tunnels). His dad is taking him away for a boys' weekend in the capital city,  my hometown. All day I have been getting increasingly manic texts. The last time I heard they were passing through Palmerston North and had written a poem together:

 Palmy, Palmy, don't take this wrong

We're on a train to Welling-ton

We'll stay with you another time

But for now we're on the main trunk line

New Zealand Railways  Crown Lynn cups and cutlery sell for heaps these days, but passengers used to swig their tea and then chuck the cups out the window. It's all polystyrene and plastic these days, I suspect. At least the train is still going; it was saved from imminent extinction in 2006 by loud public outrage and a 'Save the Overlander' campaign by the Greens.

I heard actor Ginette McDonald on the radio today, talking about Wellington. She lives there, so she's allowed to be rude. "It's like being trapped inside a Leonard Cohen song," she said, referring to Wellington's notoriously crap weather. "You walk outside and it's like being sandblasted." I was born there, so I'm allowed to be rude about it too. Someone always says, then a tad defensively, "But you can't beat Wellington on a good day." That's true - Wellington on a good day is a beautiful heavenly  city, and you feel like you could live there forever - but like now, it's often being lashed by rain and smashed by southerlies. The latest text says : 'Wet and cold. Streets like sheer ice.' They are going to see Alvin and the Chipmunks. Oh dear.

Put Some Pants on Your Head

When I was looking for projects to get me started being productive instead of lethargic, I came across Amy Krouse Rosenthal. She is a writer, filmmaker and radio host. Her new blog, MISSion Amy K.R, is a series of invitations and projects. This week's mission (and it's only Week 2) is to reflect on what the children in your life have taught you. They could be your own children, or friends, or relatives, or students, or any child you know, really. Reflect, and then share. I ended up thinking about it all day. L was a surprise in my life. He challenges me constantly. One day he might read this; I hope he does. At the moment I'm writing a lot about my own memories of childhood. What L doesn't know is that he's showing me the way back into those memories. I see him drawing and making little Lego houses, and I suddenly remember how it felt to be completely carried away to lala land. I hear him singing squeaky tuneless songs to his animals, and I remember how I used to organise my own animals into squadrons and boss them around like a drill sergeant. Sometimes I spy on him. I won't be able to get away with that for too much longer. I see him lost in some complicated scenario, and I know for sure that I was once like that too. That's my mission this year - to get some of that back again for myself.

And let us not forget the importance of:

Having the courage to try new things, despite being quite obviously terrified.

Crazy wild abandon in movement, just because it feels so satisfying.

The joy of fart jokes, bottom words, stinky smells and wearing underpants on your head.

Whiritoa Beach

Whiritoa, sandwiched between the two big holiday partygrounds of Waihi and Whangamata, is small, untouristy and serene. I'm becoming a fan of beach holidays. That might seem weird coming from someone who lives here, but I think it's because I spent two big chunks of my life living in Europe. It took me a long time to get used to New Zealand again when I got back. I thought beaches were just places where you sat in the boiling sun and turned into beetroots. But now, after careful guidance from the people who know, and as I slowly become someone who is not always uselessly unprepared (I now have a beach umbrella in the car, and even a bag with towels in it), I am learning to love the beach again.

Being in Whiritoa for a few days felt like being in a warm bath. Slopping around in jandals, rinsing sandy togs in a bucket by the back door, salads with grated carrot, hardboiled eggs and iceberg lettuce - just like being a kid again, in fact. I want L to have those sorts of memories too, and I feel lucky to be able to see it through his eyes.

We went to Whangamata to watch a surf club carnival. L put on a wetsuit for the first time ever and pretended to be a shark. Kids raced along the beach and into the wild surf. It's a different world, one where the sea is the most important thing. We ate gigantic icecreams sitting on a bench outside the local dairy, and drove home listening to Solid Gold Hits of the 70s, singing along loudly. Home for a cup of tea and a lie down, of course, on a sand-filled bunk bed in the garage filled with ancient games and rusty trikes.

Art for Haiti

New Zealander Sarah Larnach's niece and brother-in-law were killed in the Haiti earthquake. Her sister and one of her daughters survived, but another child is still missing. To raise funds, Sarah is asking for donations of artwork that can be auctioned. Go to Sarah's blog here to read more, and to find out if and how you can help. As she says, "Like me, what a lot of creative types have at their disposal is their work, rather than cash." Even posting the link via blog or email would be helpful - thank you!

Carribbean Market Jan 16, 2010, originally uploaded by AIDG.

Make Something Every Day

One of my more serious New Year's resolutions is to start creating stuff as a habit/practice/discipline. I talk about doing it, I write about doing it, but actually doing it is sporadic, and then I start getting all precious and fearful about it. As a child, I drew endlessly, and wrote stories as well. It was an integral part of who I was, and I suspect it's still in there somewhere, because I'm writing about it now. I came across a post from Smashing Magazine called 'Design Something Every Day!' with a whole lot of interesting ideas about how to kickstart the making process and keep it going.  It only needs to take 15-20 minutes a day (theoretically), which is a fraction of the time I spend faffing around on the internet. It's always good to get a push from somewhere else, and inspiration from people in the same boat.

Little nuggets of inspiration, or as we sometimes say in making theatre, 'provocations' -  they all help to get the process started. Here are some more ideas to help flex those flabby creative muscles:

• 52 Projects: Ideas and tasks providing 'jumping points' for your own work.
• 7 Photography Projects to Jumpstart Your Creativity 
• Creax: A list of 839 websites about creativity and innovation.
• Thing-a-day 2010: Create one thing every day and share in an online forum.
• Make Something Cool Every Day: Graphic designer Mark Weaver's daily project.
  
• Instructables: Lots of unusual reader-generated DIY projects - how to make a Harry Potter Hogwarts spellbook, how to make boots from a pair of socks, how to make a 70s string lamp...enough here to keep you busy and sidetracked for a few hundred years.

And a couple of old favourites:

• Twyla Tharp's book 'The Creative Habit'. She talks about the importance of structure. She calls the process of finding the grains of good ideas, 'scratching'. She writes about creativity without being fluffy or pedantic.
  
• Julia Cameron's concept of 'The Morning Pages' - three pages of longhand, stream of consciousness writing that you do every single day. Hard to do, sometimes tedious, but often useful and insightful.

Out of the Linen Cupboard

I collect fabric. I only just realised this when I opened the hall cupboard last week and really noticed the teetering piles of material stacked up to the top. I'm working through it in stages, washing it all and even giving it a bit of an iron, as it was smelling on the musty side. I have taken great pleasure in hanging it up on the line, watching it billow around in the breeze, and (most unusually) ironing it while humming and feeling good about the world. Most of the fabric I have is old, retro or vintage. There are lots of kitchen-related pieces like teatowels and tablecloths. I never buy it with a plan, but am often taken over by a burning desire to have a particular pattern or colour. Just because. This year I have decided to learn how to sew properly and overcome my sewing phobia - a legacy of intermediate school, a mean teacher and one particularly botched pink gingham apron. Mum used to sigh at the sight of my hacked hems, held up with safety pins or tacked with giant crooked stitches. She did try to take the carnage in hand and teach me some kind of technique, but I was always too impatient and figured I could get away it if I hid the worst bits. So now that the linen cupboard is becoming ordered and beautified, maybe my transition to seamstress will be next...

Golden Weather

I'm a great fan of Steve Braunias. He is a journalist who lives in Auckland. You sometimes hear him on National Radio (listen here) talking in his slow dry voice about the human condition as displayed in giant shopping malls and his shabby local arcade, which also happens to be my own. He prefers the simplicity of a good club sandwich and bottomless cup of filter coffee to anything involving focaccia, sundried tomatoes, pesto or espresso.  I love reading his stories because in their curious details they say so much about New Zealanders. Not everyone is fond of him of course, because he is often blunt and cynical.  He can also be sentimental and nostalgic, which of course I also love. He has a two year old daughter, who he writes about with both great wonder and exasperation.

"The beginning. Her first anticipation of Christmas, but there's something else that she's longed for since winter, something more important - summer. Her litany is practiced, excited. "In summer," she says, "you eat watermelon, and just wear singlets, and play with the hose, and go to the beach..." Summer is the great theme of New Zealand childhood. At two, three in February, she worships the idea of summertime, its easy pleasures, its barbecues and togs. All children deserve the world. Sunshine is a gift everyone can share. I hope she stuffs herself with it, runs squealing towards it, tanned and blonde and glowing. Golden weather."
From: 'XMAS GIRL' - SUNDAY STAR TIMES, DEC 2009

Top: ANDREA & CARLA       Bottom: EVIE & L

The Neverending Painting

L and I started doing this picture together when he was only 3 and a bit. Every now and then he asks me to get it off the wall and we have another go. Sometimes he tells me what he wants me to draw on it; sometimes he does it himself. Now he's learning to write and will try letters. It's fascinating seeing it evolve and I have just decided that I'll keep an ongoing record of its progress.  We did a tiny bit more today, a few squiggles here and there. No doubt (one day soon) I won't be allowed to do anything on it at all and it will become completely his own.

Rangitoto Island

Twenty minutes on a fast ferry, and you arrive at Rangitoto - the youngest of the islands in the Hauraki Gulf. It's easy to forget that Auckland is actually built on a field of volcanoes. Rangitoto last erupted 600 years ago...the climb to the summit takes about an hour and takes you through hot dusty lava fields and up rocky paths that never seem to end. "I'm HUNGRY," moans L, "I don't have any ENERGY."  I feed him hardboiled eggs and ignore his grumbling. On the final stretch to the summit, my legs are jellified. There are lots of tourists, including some very pale ones who look faint from the climb and the heat.

My favourite part of Rangitoto is the baches. They were built in the 20s and 30s, and there was once a thriving bach community, with swimming pools and halls and tennis courts. My friend Julie remembers visiting Rangitoto as a child and seeing the local kids ride their horses to school on neighbouring island Motutapu. But in the 50s, the government stopped the renewal of leases, people moved on, and the bach settlements died. I'm a sucker for all things nostalgic, especially other people's memories of a past that didn't include malls and McDonalds, so I was happy to discover that the baches are being restored. A nice lady invited us to come back for tea and gingernuts after our dusty trek, on our way back to the ferry.

Day at the Races

In fine New Zealand tradition, we went to the New Year's Day races at Ellerslie. The last time I went was with Grandma and Mum, quite a few years ago. They were pretty au fait with the world of racehorses, as my uncle Jim and cousin Paul were once well-known jockeys in this country. At Grandma's funeral Jim (after a few stiff whiskies) recited to me the list of his horse-related injuries - a tableau of broken collarbones and crushed vertebrae. I was never a horsey girl (too timid) but I love watching them trip around the birdcage - that's the place where they walk around before the race and you can see them up close, all frisky and glistening. "Pick that one," said L, liking a horse called Mr Charlie. "Come on, Mr Charlie!" he bellowed, and Mr Charlie obliged by coming in second. We sat on the neatly manicured lawn and ate hotdogs. It was fun, and next year we'll go back properly equipped with umbrella, chilly bin, picnic, enormous hats, vast amounts of money and binoculars.

Mum texted me today when I told her about the races. She was taught the art of texting by a pair of teenage boys from the local high school and I feel like I'm the nana instead, with my correct punctuation and fully spelled words. "I always liked d races," she said, "Used 2 go 2 d nite trots wif Gerald. Ur great grandma Hely was a great gambler on d gee gees!" Looks like it runs in the family...

My Resolutions

I will keep my room tidy.
I will not become addicted to any TV programme, even if it is about chefs.
I will be diligent about time spent on the computer and sit properly in my chair.
I will not eat so much mayonnaise.
I will water my plants.
I will not whinge and complain loudly at any time ever. Or shout.
I will do what I say I am going to do and not fib if I don't want to do something.
I will have a fully stocked gift drawer, so I am always prepared for any occasion.
I will be kind, honest, generous and gracious to all living beings, especially myself.