My friend, the camera

Mistress Mary, Quite Chin-Hairy ~

You and I have talked before about how photography has been our salvation during difficult times.  Sometimes I need a reminder to pick up my camera when things get rocky.  I did just that this morning and came up with this simple image that fills me with such peace and pleasure.  The sunlight on the little basket, my grandmother's dining chair (part of a set I gratefully received after her passing a month ago)...

I really like this quotation attributed to Dorothea Lange:

The camera is an instrument that teaches people to see without a camera.

I don't think I really was able to appreciate simple stuff like this little vignette twenty or even ten years ago.  You?

Love, Lynn

P.S.  The chin-hair thing wigs me out pretty badly, too.  Mine sprouts right out of a mole, perfectly witch-like.  Sigh.

delayed grief and hairy chin

Dear Lynn

Terrible photo taken with phone camera - forgive me blogging gods!

So the psychologist called it delayed grief - and once it was named I began to feel better. Last year anger. This year grief.  Next year acceptance?

On to matters more prosaic - and very irritating, as I progress through my forties.  What on earth did I do wrong in a past life to deserve to be part of a circus as a bearded lady?  I was smooth skinned until the babies came along.  Other than for the scar on my chin earned whilst jumping in my sleeping bag down a slippery hall with the zip zipped up thus ensuring I could not use my hands to stop my fall when I tripped on a nail.  Whilst attending a Catholic school girl retreat outside Kingaroy in the depths of Queensland.  

Anyway the babies came along and the chin began sprouting hair.  Just the odd one at first.  Now it is an infestation.  Which requires regular waxing to keep it under control.

Oh the glamour.

I certainly did not foresee that 20 years ago, or ten or even five years ago.

It absolutely and completely dements me.

Love

Mary

Pain

Dear Lynn

I have a few different posts in my head but what wants to come out is that this week is a bad one for me.

Two years ago - unbeknownst to me - the father of my children was away with another woman - and saying things to her that I thought he had only ever said to me.

Last year I was distracted by trips overseas from thinking about this week in time too much.

This year I am here.  And trying desperately not to turn this week into some kind of weird anniversary.

I never saw this in my future 20 years ago.  Nor ten, nor five years ago.

I have moved on from the obsessed by, needing to know details, wreck of a woman I was last year.

I just wasn't expecting to feel quite so agonised right now.  We continue to make plans for our future - and I am generally more realistic about life this time round.

I have rung my psychologist to get an urgent appointment.  I need to know that it is OK to forge a fresh life with someone I may never completely trust again.

Love

Mary

Jowls

Dear Mary,

I wasn't going to go posting out of turn AGAIN, and then I remembered that 47-year-olds LAUGH at rules and regulations.

Love, 
Lynn

P.S.  The two halves of my face totally don't match.

Ten Years Ago I...

...had little if any silvery hair

...could still read small print without assistance

...could still drink coffee without getting nauseated and broken out

...had just experienced my first of many menstrual migraines

...was still breastfeeding a 2.5-year-old

...didn't know my Dad would soon manifest symptoms of Parkinson's Disease

...didn't know my aunt would die in a car accident

...didn't know I would be seized with the urge to have another child, post-40 and seven years after the first one

...wouldn't have believed you if you had said my secondborn would be even stronger-willed and higher maintenance than his brother

...couldn't imagine that in ten years I would be struggling with homeschooling burnout, extreme wanderlust and a crazy, crazy hormonal roller coaster ride.

(Are we having fun yet?)

Hands

(Me giving my mother Reiki after she burned her thumb on a birthday candle the other night)

After spending hours at my dying grandmother's bedside recently, transfixed by her ziggedy-zaggedy arthritic fingers, I started paying more attention to my own hands.  Was that a bit of zig-zagging going on there in my left index finger, the one whose middle joint goes pop when I bend it?

I have given close to 10,000 massages and done a lot of power-weeding and secateur-squeezing in my day.  It's bound to take its toll eventually.  And yet, I bet I haven't done half the work with my hands that my grandma did with hers by the age of 47...

Morning Ritual

In this space called 47, Lynn and I want to present, as honestly as possible, what it is to be a woman in her late forties.

In that spirit I need to share my morning ritual. My day begins early with a cup of coffee and a cigarette.  Coffee drunk and cigarette smoked on our back verandah, sometimes in the most freezing of conditions.

I started smoking when I was 17. Gave it up for each of my pregnancies. Gave it up for good after Margot was born.  For seven years.

Last year, on the day when my world caved in on itself, I drove to a friend's place armed with a six pack of vodka coolers and a packet of cigarettes.  I only managed one cooler and two cigarettes that night.

However as the weeks went by and my misery deepened, the cigarettes became a part of my life again.  The slow drag in, the slow exhale out.  The assisted breathing. Ironic on so many levels.

I still smoke, despite my life being more settled.  Since I weaned myself off the anti depressants, I use the cigarettes to alleviate the familiar old nervy stomach.

Our children are not thrilled by my smoking.  I will give up.

Just not yet.