I've got this new thing going on

I'm not quite sure what it is, but it appears to be doing me the world of good. Whatever this feeling is, one that I can't explain, it's making me want to hug random people, smile incessantly, drop my guardedness and act a little silly. I am pretty sure it has alot to do with us moving, which is a huge positive in our life. But combine that with the running around like a chicken on coke, the sleeplessness, and you've got this kind of spinning wild positive rush of, well, positivity. Can't wait to find out what this rush will create once it has officially moved in with us in the new abode. I hope it manifests itself into more art work and a more settled feeling of creative domestic bliss.
All is good. We're taking Isaac to the zoo tomorrow, and then some old fashioned cake splatting to celebrate his first year on this earth, our first year of pure wild love. His gift will be the new house. Not many babies get a house for their first birthday do they? Well, its our way of looking at it. The reality is, his birthday happens to fall during a humungous time in our life right now. We're just trying to put a positive twist to the fact that we cannot go all out on a birthday party for him. Definately not now. He's not fussed anyway. He's too busy enjoying everything around to notice he's a year older. Us grown ups could learn a thing or two from babies. I certainly have.

Im tired. But Im not going to disappear on you dear blog.

Should i keep going on? Yes I will. It's not an emphatic yes I will. More of an exhausted whispering yes I will. But a yes I will nonetheless! Because I know, and those of you, my dear friends who read this blog knows, things have been wilting ever so slightly over here in the last few months, save for a precious drop of a post whenever I can for my blog to survive on. I have been terrible at looking after things here, which in other words means, looking after me. And when I think of it in that way, I feel compelled enough to want to write about it. Because I'm drawn to doing so. It's me after all. And why wouldn't I want to take care of me?I know deep down, that the last two years of doing this has been a big deal for me, in a way that many non-blogging, folk might not get. That's okay by me of course. I'm just acknowledging this very real fact. There are people who get it, there are people who don't. All this self obsessed personal writing malarky. Jeez, get over yourself woman! I hear that phrase ringing over and over in my head sometimes when I read some of my posts. I feel like im indulging too much in the world of ME. But who else could do that but me? Why would i want anybody else to do this but me? It can only be me! I get this. Writing, and writing publically as a means to meet people who want to meet me, help people who can be helped by me, and deliver a kind of loyal support through regular posts, to those who return the loyalty by reading my blog, me. That's what sets blog writing apart from writing privately. Writing privately is a bit like wanting something to change in your life but keeping this desire forever locked away in your heart. Writing publically is a bit like allowing that change to roam free and actually get things changed. This has happened to me. My blog helped me set free my artistic wants and needs. It has helped me get more comfortable with who I am and the wants and needs that make up who I am. It has helped me create a narrative for my story and I think every story deserves to be expressed and read, and needed, by those who want to read it and feel the need for it.
Yes I will!

Dreaming of a more natural way of life

Nothing involving chickens though. Or carving wooden spoons. Reusable sanitary towels (I'm not joking, they do exist) and smelling like someone who's not accustomed to soap.I don't want to treat my London roots like weeds that need pulling out. But there are days, many many days, and especially now that we are moving, that I long for a far simpler flow to my life. One that involves raising a family, getting creative, cultivating time for education and experience, without worrying about the wheres and the hows. How can we afford this? Where are we going today? What's for dinner? Why are we watching Americas Next Top Model? Why does my hair look like this? Questions questions questions, thrown into the void of Isaacs nap time. Sometimes it feels like, when we have a glorious opportunity to bathe in the art of simple, we spoil it by throwing in all these questions, and general fidgety mood as to how to spend the time constructively We end up looking at Isaacs baby photos and missing him. Even though five minutes prior he was sitting on the living room floor, post-bathtime, fiddling about with his peepee and laughing his head off at the absurdity of such a thing.
I see all these boxes around me and it feels like we've unburdened our apartment, our home over the last three years, of a huge weight. Like one big pile of box poop. What a relief!! We were living in a severely constipated home! We never truly took the time to enjoy our possessions. It was more a case of putting it in places so that Isaac couldnt reach them, or in a place where we'd figure out where to put it in the future ie. the guestroom with no guests aka the room with no purpose except to put things we couldn't decide what to do with. Long name for a room i know.

I can't wait to breathe a more simpler way of life. One where we don't question the hell out of the precious time we have to be together as a family. One where we can appreciate and enjoy and be proud of our home and our carefully filtered possessions.

A very fine house indeed...

Well thats the idea anyway. Over the last few months we have finally succumbed to a yearlong fantasy of buying a home. I guess with a baby in the picture the notion of building a family nest suddenly pushed itself up further in the ranks of things we want and need.
As of now though, we've been living in a spacious apartment in a quiet area. It's just not very child-friendly. Carrying my heffalump of a baby, with bags of shopping up two flights of stairs is not a hugely enjoyable task these days. It's not a very child-friendly home either, with an attractive steel stair case leading up to our loft bedroom, and large ornaments dotted around the house like a diggeridoo and a wood carved African mask. All remnants of Mr Ts travelling days pre-heffalump, pre-easily impressed moi, pre-having no worries in the world except to prance about the world collecting stuff. What impresses me now is his magic ability to sing Incy Wincy Spider like a lullaby. Knocks Isaac out in 30 seconds flat. I can never do it.
So the image of a back garden instead of a balcony 30 feet up in the air with the constant threat of my undies raining down on innocent bystanders, home grown tomatoes and cucumbers instead of wilting basil and coriander in my 57th attempt to pot plant a herb garden, opening the door to my home without having to climb up stairs with sweaty baby in arm to get to it; It all finally took its toll. Somewhere in a land far far away,there was a rundown house in need of our love and attention. And an owner of course. We found that house. It's in a stable condition but with abit of planning we hope to move in and make it our home, by the beginning of October.
In the meantime, we have been packing boxes and moving random pieces of furniture every weeknight like two deluded individuals, shushing each other everytime we make a loud noise, even if that loud noise happens to be the result of having a box of Chinese teapots rest on your little toe. All because we don't want to wake up Isaac or our otherwise very understanding neighbours. Every night, we have sacrificed our guilt-free vegetative state in front of the T.V, for some much required elbow grease. Hard work, lots of angry shushing, broken finger nails and odd combination of clothes being worn due to not knowing where our clothes are these days since there are so many boxes it's blocking our mirrors.
Things just get done faster when you don't worry about how bad you're looking.

i want to be alone....so do I Greta, so do i.....

FB update:Yesterday the lady at the pharmacy made the intelligent observation that by me holding my baby instead of keeping him strapped in his stroller screaming his eyeballs off, he would be spoilt. Theres a fine line between expressing an opinion and being a complete asshole. Welcome to motherhood Khairun.

I don't have the luxury to be quiet these days. Greta never had children of her own. Perhaps because she knew that a miniature version of Greta would have her screaming those famous words instead. Miss Pharmacy Lady saw to it that I never retreat to my cosy self made shell again. And she wouldn't have been on a mission to put my blossoming parenting skills down, without there being a baby in my arms.So it was Isaac who got to the job at hand, that of holding his podgy hands up to my face, to stop me from retreating back into the closet of Thinking everybody is Nice and Thinking everybody thinks I'm Nice-Land.
Before motherhood went and shoved my creative free time high up where the sun don't shine, I had the luxury of having my quiet moments uninterrupted, my boredom free to roam and wander and multiply. Me and Mr T secretly delighted in being occasionally ignored by the more talkative parent scene at random get togethers. Add to the bag the fact that I'm usually surrounded by non English speaking individuals, it was even more of a pure unashamed indulgence of mine to slip out of the conversation, which I didn't understand anyway,about various schools and the funny things my child says which I also didn't have much to add to accept a smile and and a reallllllyyyyy??,and instead would find myself jiggling someones baby on my hip or smile at random children whilst they imitate my mute condition by staring back at me, before running off to find someone slightly more entertaining. It didnt bother me in the sense that I didn't pressure myself as I did in my uni years, to get out of my shell and cure myself of this crippling

introvertigo

. It meant I never had too many kids wiping their noses on the back of my skirt and asking me lots of questions. I just figured, why fight the very essence of what makes you YOU? I was grateful for feeling confident enough to be quiet, to go with the flow, to not give a hoo haa what other people think. Us quiet folk are often misinterpreted as being rude, unsociable, selfish, insecure, cut off from what is supposed to be the basic human prereqhuisite: communication. Not to say that there aren't any quiet mean people out there. I just like to think I'm from the quiet and nice variety!
Try being quietly nice with a baby then Khairun. It worked for Greta because of 1.Being childless and 2. Being what you call, sassy.
Sassy Khairun is an oxymoron. Sassy Khairun sounds like swahili for wimpish. My wimpish temperament combined with motherhood, meant an inevitable facewipe from complete strangers who think they know how to be a better mother than me. This smiling mute condition doesn't hold up so well in the face of unsolicited advice and the very real changes that have to take place in order for me to take it on the chin. I cannot be chinless anymore. I created my own version of self confidence out of something that, for as long as it remained untested, which was my feelings and ideas, I was doing great. My own personal manifesto on how to survive a very loud opinionated world with a very quiet,chinless and totally unsassy soul. Smiling in the hope to win over peoples hearts with my ditsy ways doesnt work whilst jiggling a baby that is very much mine and will always be mine and nobody elses. I need to know how to take hurtful comments with a firm hand. I need to know that keeping myself to myself, isn't going to do much for me anymore. Im touching upon an issue i wrote about recently, about how I've spent too long defending a shyness that has now proven to not work in the real world. Being a mother has suddenly made the world very real to me.
There is a me somewhere in all of this. Its through the writing, the painting, the way i love my son, the things that make me laugh, the things that make me want to be a better version of the current version. I love all these things about me. i love that I want to know so much without ever feeling that I know it all. To see that I am still the same person to those who matter, whilst knowing that I need to change so much of that person. The acknowledgement of this has been a real joy for me.

It's good to give a voice to these things.