32. Listen Carefully – Sound advice for Marketers & Bloggers alike

Sometimes being a muse is not everything

32. Listen carefully.
Every collaborator who enters our orbit brings with him or her a world more strange and complex than any we could ever hope to imagine. By listening to the details and the subtlety of their needs, desires, or ambitions, we fold their world onto our own. Neither party will ever be the same.

Blogging, it turns out, is a pastime fraught with peril.

As the reader is probably aware, this blog was born of a unique blend of boredom, frustration and too much time. Like many things I’ve started, it was a relatively an ill-considered venture, probably begun in the early hours of dawn and possibly whilst under the influence of a pre-hangover high.

Since the birth of my blog, and amidst a tight-knit pack of devoted readers (Kirsty, I know you’re reading this), I had an attack of Blogger’s Block.

For those of you who have not yet fallen prey to the promise of a free blog account, Blogger’s Block is what happens when you think you have something to say, then find out you don’t have enough time to say it.

In my case, Blogger’s block, was exasperated by the birth of a business and the vacuum it created in all the free time left over from toddler-wrangling and devoted wife-ing *cough cough*.

So what brings me back, you might ask?

In this case it’s a unique blend of stimuli. You see, in the intervening months, my blogging career hasn’t just gone cold. Rather, I’ve taken a more behind-the-scenes role in the world of blogging. If you haven’t noticed, I’ve actually been hard at work in another accidental blogging adventure, Secrets of Fatherhood.

Amid a heavy-handed dab of artistic license, readers of Secrets of Fatherhood may recognise my cameo appearances on couches, in birthing stories and some of the more excited fantasies of the blog’s blogger (who at this point still refuses the title of author or writer).

Once the novelty of having my life blogged again wore off, the reality of such fame set in. Minor inconsistencies in my new, online character began to appear. I noticed that my new online persona had been using my iPhone for explicit photos, and seemed to be caught in some altered reality, pre-, mid and post-baby bearing.

So finally, one morning at 3am, the misgivings of a muse woke me.

I lay pondering the eleven unwritten (Bruce Mau’s Incomplete Manifesto for Growth totals 43 statements) blogs in my writing future.

Then it hit me: 32 – Listen Carefully. Which is the very thing I’ve been doing since I last blogged. The very thing my marketing clients pay me for.

To listen.

Very Carefully.

Because what you hear, is not often what you expect to hear.

After several months of listening, it seems I have my blogging mojo back. Thank you, Bruce.

31. Don’t Borrow Money

31. Don’t borrow money.
Once again, Frank Gehry’s advice. By maintaining financial control, we maintain creative control. It’s not exactly rocket science, but it’s surprising how hard it is to maintain this discipline, and how many have failed.

A word before you start…

This project began as a response to Bruce Mau’s Incomplete Manifesto, as a designer. But it quickly morphed into a writer’s exercise. On returning after a six month break, I find it has taken another step.

Although this is even further from Mau’s original intention, it’s even closer to me as a writer.

And now the story…

Amy stares at her hands. The unforgiving flicker of fluorescent light picks out their blotchy appearance, painting them a sickly shade of green. It’s how she feels, right down to the creeping cold that numbs her fingertips.

A nearby rattle of change makes her glance up quickly. “You got a dollar, Mate? Me and m’ mates are trying to get enough for a burger between us.”

Amy watches greedily as the guy in the business suit gropes in his pocket and drops a few coins into the outstretched hand of the fidgeting youth. The coins clink, and both turn away, relieved, transaction complete.

From the corner of her eye she observes. The youth saunters past, returning triumphant to his cohorts. She is careful to avoid eye contact, or any clue that she sees him. It’s one of the rules she’s learning in this alien environment.

He drops the coins into a pocket and the satisfying clatter of a heavy purse can be faintly heard. “Reckon that’s enough for a Bundy!” he crows.

Alone, on her bone-chilling step, Amy feels the heat of embarrassment warm her face despite the July chill. She tries not to think of the dollar she dropped into that hand half an hour ago, nor calculate the percentage it represents of her total wealth. Another lesson learned on this cold night. She huddles deeper into the faux fur trim of the vinyl jacket, wishing she’d thought to grab a scarf in her enraged exit.

Around her, the Brisbane Queen Street Mall sulks in the Winter air. Like any Brisbane native, it seems rudely shocked at any interruption of summer, and bitterly unprepared for sub 20 degree temperatures.

Amy huddles deeper in her vinyl cocoon, trying to shut the cold, the discomfort, the uncertainty out, without compromising her heightened awareness of every passerby. She is exhausted from the simple act of trying to remain invisible on a street of drunks and uninhibited urchins. She feels every set of eyes, like daggers and is intent on remaining unremarkable. Even her shivers are muted, lest the movement attracts attention.

A police constable stops in front of her. His mouth opens to move her along but his youthful eyes betray concern. They both know it’s an offence to loiter here, on the garden edge below the Mall Police Beat sign, but they both know the risk is worth the slight protection it brings. She stares back biting her lip, waiting for the order to move. He sighs and moves away, leaving her in the renewed misery of another’s acknowledgement of her hopeless plight.

“Hi”

The unnoticed approach of the speaker makes her jump. He is standing within metres, fully aware of her, and awaiting a response.

“Are you, er, hungry?” he continues.

“No thank you” she returns, willing a detached coolness to her voice amid the thunder of blood pounding in her ears.

The man sits, a careful metre away from her on the garden edge. She notices the cold bite through the material of his suit pants, and the involuntary grimace it brings to his face. Although she keeps her face carefully averted, eyes staring nonchalantly forward, scanning the mall, as though expecting someone.

The scrape of a lighter causes her attention to flicker towards him. Her disloyal gaze lingers too long on the cigarette in his hand, the smell of nicotine tugging at her senses. It’s a strategic error, a sign of engagement, and a clue of her true weakness.

He offers the packet. It spans the safe distance between them, calling to her like the forbidden fruit. There is a momentary struggle within, the instinctive will to remain aloof battles with the bodily desire to inhale. Her traitorous hand reaches out.

The lighter sparks, smoke curls in the wintry air and the two smokers inhale in silence.

The glow of nicotine warms her limbs, the unexpected cigarette thaws her cool and the kindness of a stranger loosens some of her wariness. They chat, the careful chatter of strangers not wanting to engage, not wanting to pry.

After a while he stands. “Look, I know you don’t know me, I don’t know you. But it’s obvious you don’t have anywhere to go tonight.”

His candor catches her offgaurd. She begins a desperate protest, vainly trying to invent a story with someone to meet, somewhere to go.

“Hey, it’s okay…” He hold his hands up to soothe her outburst.

“All I’m saying is, I have a room in town tonight, and you’re welcome to crash. Nothing funny, just one person offering another a hand,” he finishes quickly.

Amy tries to ignore the cold, the exhaustion, the mental fatigue of remaining constantly alert. She searches for an answer, something polite, something definite, something sensible.

“Okay.” It’s the response of a half-frozen kid aching for a soft bed, not a 19 year old girl facing the night alone in a hotel room with an unknown guy.

As they walk past the Police Beat door, the young constable meets her eye. The concern fades, replaced by something else, unreadable. She turns away, pretending not to understand, pretending that she hasn’t just made a deal, that she hasn’t just borrowed something that requires a return payment.

30. Organisation = Liberty

30. Organization = Liberty.
Real innovation in design, or any other field, happens in context. That context is usually some form of cooperatively managed enterprise. Frank Gehry, for instance, is only able to realize Bilbao because his studio can deliver it on budget. The myth of a split between “creatives” and “suits” is what Leonard Cohen calls a ‘charming artifact of the past.’

Too late, I realise that nine months of romantic notions of motherhood are poor preparation for the first few hours of the real thing.
Leo is born at 1.18am on a Friday morning. The first two hours of his life are a blur in my memory. The memories are like polaroids in a washing machine. I have vivid images burned into my mind, but the feats of labour and childbirth have distorted all sense of time, continuity and reason. For the frst time I am happy to defer to my husband’s recollection of events. Around 4.30am he leaves the two of us. Both of us swaddled side-by-side in the hospital garb of our new positions in the world, and asleep before he can close the door to our room.
Once, I am vaguely aware of the light hands of a nurse, measuring my blood pressure, but she makes no real attempt at conversation, so I ignore her, roll one eye towards the peaceful bundle in his crib beside me and endeavour to remain asleep.

“Hell-ooooo…… are you awake?”

My eyelids open before my brain has time to engage and I stare catatonically at the apparition standing at the foot of my bed in the dim morning light. I feel the creases from the sheets on my face and the sandpaper of eyelids that blur my vision with each blink.

The figure waves excitedly and begins to speak. My groggy vision clears and I stare past the speaker at the wall clock. 6:30am. It means so much and yet nothing.

“How are you love?”

Something about the question tugs at me. I offer my arm for the nurse to take my blood pressure, waving at the history clipped to the bottom of my bed.

“It’s all in there if you want to read it.”

Yes, almost twenty hours of induced labour, the curtain raiser to my motherhood, neatly reduced to vital statistics and drug dosages.

“He’s beautiful, Love.”

The empathy of the statement reaches into my stupor. My mother-in-law bends over the crib, rearranging the blanket, touching the tiny face, squeezing the minute finger that clasps the wrap. Her deft movements prick my attention, and I am suddenly aware of an urge to shield my son against any intrusion. As if in response to the thought, he nestles against his wrappings and utters a tiny, newborn squeak.

And thus begins Day One. After my mother-in-law, there is a nurse to check on us, followed by a breakfast tray, tea lady and newspaper delivery. A midwife then helps me to the bathroom, to shower, get dressed, sag back into fresh sheets and begin the clumsy process of breastfeeding. I feel like a fish trying to play guitar and wonder how dogs, cats and horses manage without a midwife standing at their shoulder and repositioning their nipples. By ten o-clock my husband returns, looking irritatingly refreshed and bearing a list of eager visitors. I resist the urge to lock the door and pull down the shades. We are moved to a new room in a procession of bags, flowers, sleeping baby, hobbling mother and grinning father.
The unstoppable hustle and bustle of matronly hospital routine is the curtain-raiser for the next 20 years of motherhood. I don’t know it now, but this force of organisation will become the backbone of our tentative steps as new parents.
But here, at it’s inception, I am too dazed from lack of sleep and my mixed pharmaceutical cocktail of labour-inducers to begin to imagine where Liberty might be found.

The Unexpected Answer

This post is different.

Firstly, it does not follow the rules I imposed on this blog at the beginning: it was not written on a work day, it has no conscious structure and it has even less to do with design than any of the 30 preceeding it. Secondly, it wrote itself. I had no intention of writing it until I went to send a brief thank-you to two beautiful friends for sharing a remarkable video on Facebook. I have included the video link at the bottom as a reference for my wonder.

As you may know, we ran the Finding the Flow workshop last weekend, and to tell you the truth it shook me up quite a bit. It stirred up the silt of my depression, which has swirled around me this past week. Two days ago I had a “bad” day, my first in a long time. All of my negativity, depression, anger, frustration rose up and threatened to swallow me whole. In the middle of it I cursed God and told him to prove himself to me or fuck off and take everything.

Then I laid out my cycling gear for the first time in three weeks, set my alarm clock and fell asleep.

I woke half an hour before my alarm, and spent the extra time staring at Adam’s back and the view of the dawn rising over the hill opposite our house. On the way out of the house, my three year old son, Leo came over to me, sleep befuddled, hugged me and told me to have “a wonderful ride”. Which I did. I followed a rainbow between two rain fronts and got only the lightest of sprays on me, despite the rain still streaming off the road in front of me.

My day rolled easily out before me in a series of touching encounters. With my kids, with Adam, with the mother of a professional athlete who empathised with me when Leo ran 200 metres down the street with me trying to catch him, with my Mother, and my Sister. And with Truffles, a random echidna who touched noses with me, which was golden thanks for pulling a paralysis tick of him/her the day before.

And that night we went to a party we were dreading to find several people we already knew, and who knew people we knew and we had a really great time. I invited the neighbours to come see our Christmas tree when it arrives and one shyly asked me if I might leave one little decoration unhung for her to put up as they are not getting a tree. They showed us the open heart of where we live and how beautiful it is to live among ordinary people.

This morning I awoke with the strange enthuisiasm for life that hangovers bless me with. And I gardened with the kids, delighting in simple things like hunting borers in the hedge and finding a dead snake full of blow flies. Which is fascinating stuff when you are almost two, or three, or thirty-one.

Then the three of us took turns to persuade Dad out of his hibernation in the cave of his office. We applied cups of tea and helping hands as he fixed the bikes for us. The the three of us were on our best behaviour as we set of for our first family bike ride together. We let him go first, tell us what to do, what not to do and change his mind as often as he liked. And we loved it.

We rode one and a half kilometres, like ducklings in a line, without straying, swearing or arguing once. Then we found excellent gluten-free grilled fish with chips to eat in view of the river. And carrot cake. Sophia waved shyly at a curly-haired boy her age and I caught a glimpse of the woman she will become in the blush that tinged her cheeks when he waved back.

Our duckling line wove, laughing, along the path behind Dad on the way back and we waved cheekily to the pelicans standing like judges at the waters edge. Even the rain waited for the last belt buckle to clip before bursting out of the sky like an answer to my wishes for a clean car.

And would you believe, we even sang on the way home? Like that Austrian family in the Sound of Music, but without the Alps, the tune or the talent. Just a postcard glow in the heart, that more than makes up for talent, which I hear is cheap anyway.

And what finds me at home but sleeping kids, a cricket-satiated husband and a list of beautiful, inspirational friends sharing wonder through the ether of the internet.

As my heart swells to bursting, I am moved to write my thanks. About gratitude for my life and an answer from a God I cursed. An answer that says, we are all connected and your happiness in life ripples with the power to change the world.

Shalom

(You see, it begins there, then ripples out into the world as a vibration of gratitude for a beautiful life.)

Here is the video in which I received my unexpected answer.

Feel free to keep the ripples going.

Love, eClaire

29. Think with your mind

29. Think with your mind.
Forget technology. Creativity is not device-dependent.

(Bruce Mau’s Incomplete Manifesto for Growth)

I slam the dishwasher triumphantly on the last of the breakfast wreckage like an endurance athlete crossing the finish line. The final dash may have been through gritted teeth, but I can finally survey the kitchen without hearing the Spray and Wipe ad jingle.

I briefly note that the kids are not destroying anything important on the veranda before turning down the hall, mentally composing my day as I go. I prioritise cleaning, laundry, shopping and a gaggle of other household jobs into an efficient plan of attack. I kid myself that having a plan will somehow ease the daunting task of another day of domestic drudgery.

Just as I begin to ponder exactly how many years of domestic tyranny might be in front of me, I hear a squeal from Sophia that obliterates my plans with a single, high-decibel shriek. Whilst I have heard mothers talk about being able to decipher the varied burbles and yells of their offspring, I have spent two years feeling like a tone-deaf seal in the midst of a yelping colony. Pathetically unable to distinguish my kids’ utterings from anyone else under the age of two, much less derive sense from the cacophony.

“Oh that’s Charlie, and he just dropped his favourite bear into the loo” the discerning mother might say, without turning or pausing for breath in their conversation.

Now, in the space of an instant, I know something is wrong. My triumph over the maternal language barrier comes with a blow, one that spins my body towards the sound before my brain can register the significance of the tone.

The screen door bounces in its frame as I wrench it open and step wide-eyed into the brightness of the morning sun. At first I think she has fallen, and kneel to scoop her prone body into my arms. But as I lift her, she retains her foetal position, curled into herself like an injured kitten, strangely stiff in my arms. My brain is awash with fear, as I desperately search for clues on her face.

I’m already walking back inside as her body stiffens again. She uncurls and arches her back across my arms, rigid with an invisible force that seems to squeeze the life out of her. Her unseeing eyes bulge, her jaw works noiselessly and her face turns grey. From the depths of my shock and infuriating helplessness, all I can do is reach for my phone and dial 000.

In the seconds it takes to transfer me to an Ambulance operator, I notice the shade of blue around her mouth. It creeps insidiously outwards, consuming the baby pink of her cheeks with its deathly pallor. I blink hard, refusing to connect with the realisation that she is not breathing.

An woman answers and I struggle to find objective words to describe the situation.

“My daughter, she’s a baby… um 12 months, something…”

I stumble over her age, suddenly unable to calculate how old she is in months and unable to determine if it is crucial information. The words come out of me twisted and tripping over each other.

I grip the phone and stare at Sophia. She lies immobile, the shadow of blue across her face highlighting the maroon pattern in the throw tangled under her little body. I start again.

“She’s a baby, she’s had a fit or something and she’s not breathing.”

The words hang in the air like an apparition and I side-step their meaning, trying not to associate the words “fit” and “not breathing” with my daughter.

At last the operator understands. Her voice softens a touch, she slows her delivery and I feel her professional empathy touch me lightly over the phone.

“What’s your address?”

The question slaps me in the face, teasing me with its simplicity and yet failing to produce a result in my adrenalin-flooded brain. I begin with our old address, correct myself, forget our house number and finally draw a blank on our suburb. Unhelpfully, I think of countless six year olds applauded in the media as calm in the face of danger, ordering Ambulances, Police and Fire Engines with poise in moments of unspeakable disaster. I stumble over our suburb like a dementia patient, the words suddenly unfamiliar and empty. I want to scream, “Just get here now!” and toy with the idea of hanging up and driving to the hospital.

Despite my ineptitude, the operator finally finds me on her map and I sag back onto my heels in relief. Shame burns on my face with a cruel intensity and I feel the full weight of my uselessness.

It is then that Sophia makes a strangled cry, her first in minutes and tries to rolls over. In a rush, her face floods with pink and I feel my own lungs fill with air again.

“She’s coming round” I gasp. Gratitude floods out of me like a dam bursting. It fills the air around me, embracing my children, forgiving my panic and bouncing in the rays of sun that pour across the tiny girl sobbing on the couch.

I decline the operator’s offer to wait with me on the phone and can think of no response to her question “Are you okay?” I cannot hug both my kids whilst holding my phone, so I thank her and ring off.
In the long minutes before the ambulance arrives I struggle with an irrational urge to tidy the house and wish belatedly for the day of domestic drudgery that I was dreading just 10 minutes ago.

To be continued…

28. Make new words.

28. Make new words.
Expand the lexicon. The new conditions demand a new way of thinking. The thinking demands new forms of expression. The expression generates new conditions.

(Bruce Mau’s Incomplete Manifesto for Growth)

 

To my three year old son, The Bogwoppit is a name given to someone trying to be serious, but who he sees through with his mischievious grin and easy laugh. Such as one of his parents telling him not to stand on the couch, play with an iPhone or turn the hose on his sister.

To me, the name has more serious origins.

The Bogwoppit entered my life as a cantankerous bantam rooster. He was a proud specimen of testosterone-fuelled avian power and might. His black plumage gleams with a deep sheen of emerald and his cocks comb proclaimed him king of the chook pen for all to admire. Despite several larger varieties of rooster in residence, The Bogwoppit held the balance of power among the chooks by keeping a strict regimen amongst the hens and terrorising all foreigners who dared enter his realm.

As a five year old, I remember experimenting with his tolerance for outsiders. My mother, as chief chook tender, was bestowed a position of reverence and allowed free access to the nesting boxes and grain troughs. My sister was allowed into the pen to collect eggs, but as soon as her back was turned, he would fly at her in a flurry of furious feathers and bundle her out like an offended bouncer. My father was regarded as a revered enemy and I witnessed more than one stand-off between them. They would each stand at the ready, shoulders back, necks craned, scanning the other for signs of weakness or any reason to attack.

As the youngest human and that closest to The Bogwoppit in size, I knew my position would begin low on the rungs of avian respect. It seemed inevitable that my appearance would result in a furious display of rooster feathers and my own hurried retreat. His fighting spurs would gleam among the proudly displayed feathers, and the bird, quickly ascertaining my weakness would take any opportunity to show them off. He would fly at me across the chook pen, three feet off the ground and through a pathway of squarking hens, uttering fierce promises of revenge.

At this point, my behavioural curiosity would desert me and I would be overtaken by the primal urge to drop everything and run screaming to safety. A pattern repeated daily, perhaps half a dozen times before I had completed my task of filling the troughs and collecting the eggs. The scene became a part of the daily routine and we both settled into our roles, he as master of the realm and I as an interloper to be driven off.

Of course, I realised that my fear was irrational. It’s intensity bore no relationship to the rooster himself, as the bird was six inches high and weighed less that 250 grams soaking wet.  Furthermore, I realised that despite my terror, he had never actually laid a beak or spur to me. Truthfully, I had suffered more at the hooves and horns of the good-natured goats than my chook pen nemesis. I considered this point over the next few days of my harassment.

I realised that before I had even entered the pen, my fear had become a palpable force, closing my throat, blurring my eyes and confusing my hands and feet. Once in the pen, the rooster only had to so much as ruffle his feathers and I would leap upright, tangling my hair in the low slung netting of the roof, barking my shins on the perches and beating an undignified retreat without so much as a single forward movement from the bird.

Finally, I decide it is time to stand up to my feathered foe. I grip the feed bucket determinedly in one hand and place the other on the gate. I take a lungful of fresh air to sustain me in the foetid air of the coop and enter the gauntlet. My enemy clucks and lifts his head from his scratching. He tilts his head, allowing one beady eye to meet my own.

I imagine a tumble weed blowing between us as the noon day sun beats down through the patchwork of overhead leaves. The ever-restless wrens become still in the tall grasses that brush the corrugated iron walls and a dozen surreptitious bird eyes turn to watch the impasse.

The Bogwoppit clucks again, in a slightly higher pitch, voicing his disapproval of my presence. My bare feet squirm in the warm manure, and I will them not to betray me now. I glance towards the nesting hutches and take my first tentative step. The Bogwoppit, bobs his head a fraction higher with an alarmed “berg-erk!!” The bright red of his wattle seems to turn a shade more crimson to better accentuate his alarm.

I close my eyes as take several more steps, willing myself to walk deeper into the coop, and to enter the dead end of the dim laying shed. I drag my eyes from the glare of the rooster and adjust them to the gloom of the inner space before me. Several eggs catch my eye and my attention is diverted as I begin to scout for them.

My hands close around the still warm shapes and I marvel at how perfectly each is formed. How my small hands seem to be made to fit around them, to scoop them out of the nests and into safe hollows in the grain bucket.

A startled cluck echoes into the coop, amplified by the crude iron walls. I look up to see a brown hen, comically paused mid-stride. One leg is tucked beneath her, yet to be placed on the ground, her head is frozen at right angles to her body and her expression suggests she has been caught unawares, about to commit a private act. It’s like surprising one of your grandparents in the bathroom, and I blush.

Before I can think to act, her cluck is echoed from outside. I hear a sound like that of a feather duster being wielded by a passive aggressive cleaner. The Bogwoppit skids into view on a wave of flying chicken poo and bent feathers. His cocks comb is now a livid red, as though I have betrayed some truce extended to me.

The hen ‘Ber-gawks!’ at the site of him, all but pointing an accusing wingtip at me.  I crouch in the tiny coop interior, as the two irate birds hop before me, she inciting him to attack and he swelling to the very limits of his six inch stature. If I weren’t shitting myself where I crouch in the chicken poo I would be able to appreciate the humour of the scene.

On my haunches, I inch forward, pushing the bucket before me like a shield. The two chooks ‘Ber-gawk!’ louder, heads bobbing together in consternation. The brown hen leaps onto a low perch to distance herself from me, or perhaps to better view the impending carnage. The Bogwoppit drops his wings like a bull fighter lowering his cape before the charge and an evil gleam lights his eye as he struts into the centre of the coop entrance, blocking my escape.

I am cornered amongst the chicken shit by the silhouette of an enraged miniature rooster.

I could lie and say I experience an epiphany of animal behaviour in this moment of reckoning. That I take a chance against the odds and gather my courage to me for the final showdown. But that would just be a lie and as bad as crouching in warm chicken shit.

In truth, I am motivated by a singular urge. In the moment that his shadow passes across my view of freedom a primal urge to flight is triggered. And it is far greater, far deeper, and more intense than any urge not to be pecked to death by an enraged chook. In fact, it leaves my more common fear for dead, crouching in the dung.

Propelled by the primal urge to escape out of the darkness and back into the sunlight, I rocket out of the back of the coop yodelling like a primate being chased by a panther. I leap the last low slung perches even though I am running at a crouch, flinging the grain bucket at the two startled birds. I turn the corner and leap towards the light of freedom.

Behind me I hear a choked ‘Squark!’ from the hen and imagine the explosion of feathers and spurs that pursues me across the yard. The gate rips off its hinges as the full weight of my body crashes through it and carries me out into the open. The resting goats leap to their feet and a gaggle of ducks rush from my frenzied path, but still The Bogwoppit pursues me, beating his wings and pecking at my heels. I hear his cry, mangled in the head long rush, sounding something like evil laughter to my terrified ears.

I leap a hay bier and streak across the yard, past the sheds, across the grass and towards the safety of the house yard gate. My foe is hot on my heels, and my heart is pounding in my chest.

I leap at the safety of the gate, swinging myself to the top with practised agility and only daring to pause for breath when I am astride the five foot steel bar. I look down, expecting to see The Bogwoppit flinging himself up at me several feet below. But he isn’t.

Puzzled, I look back along my flight path to the chicken coop and milking sheds. I still don’t see him. My eyes scan the shadows around the sheds, the chooks are re-settling themselves in the shade, clucking their disapproval, the goats looking at each other in confusion. Again I hear the battle cry that pursued me across the yard and my eyes are pulled to the door of the goat shed.

My sister holds the door frame, her body shaking convulsively as she laughs out loud. My gaze follows her out stretched arm and I see my pursuer and his brown wife happily pecking at the spilled grain amongst the ruins of the chicken coop gate.

27. Read only left-hand pages.

27. Read only left-hand pages.
Marshall McLuhan did this. By decreasing the amount of information, we leave room for what he called our “noodle.”

(Bruce Mau’s Incomplete Manifesto for Growth)

 

Sophia is a 38 week old pregnancy when I first encounter her Capricornian stubbornness.

For 38 weeks she has evolved quietly in her private sea, until her head has come to rest inside my pelvis in readiness for her descent into the world. Now though, for some incomprehensible reason, she has changed her mind and wriggled around into a breech position.

I take a moment to marvel at how a near full-term baby could possibly find the room for such a manuovure. I imagine her bumping backwards and forwards like a driver trying to turn a cement truck in a single car parking space and I realise why I was awake all night.

My obstetrician helps me from the bed and allows me to settle in my chair before he clarifing the situation.

Breech is undesirable for a natural birth and he would recommend an early caesarean to avoid going into labour in this position. However, the latest research suggests Obs attempt to be rectify every breech with an External Cephalic Version or ECV. He pauses to assess my reaction.

I shrug. “Oh, okay.”

I smile apologetically, realising the majority of third term mothers-to-be who have sat in this chair have been manically studying pregnancy books for the past eight months.

I come clean. “Look, I’m not a medico, I figure we pay you and you tell us what to do… So what’s an ECV?”

There follows a protracted explanation of the procedure of turning an unborn baby via external manipulation. A thought I find hard to entertain, even before considering donating the belly and the baby.

I weigh my options.

It is December 15, and I am 38 weeks pregnant. An ECV needs to be attempted asap as the growing baby becomes harder to turn with every passing day. If we can turn her around I can go home, do my Christmas shopping, have Christmas and wait to go into natural labour nearer my due date of 29 December. Alternatively, I would book a caesarean now and spend Christmas in a hospital bed with my abdominal muscles stitched together and unable to lift my baby, who will be two weeks premature.

Suddenly, the whole perfect pregnancy game looks endangered. Belatedly I wonder if I could have avoided this if I had read more pregnancy advice books. Perhaps there is a special girdle available to stop this very thing happening. Am I an irresponsible mother already?

>>

Two days later I am in the waiting room of the hospital trying to read my book whilst concealing the cover. I suspect that Colin Wilson’s The Occult might raise a few eyebrows in a private, inner-city hospital, but I am determined to finish it.

My mind chews nervously on the logistics of turning a 38 week old unborn baby by external manipulation. My brain stumbles over the alien concept and blunders into a wall of fear for my daughter. She lies curled with her spine against mine, her tiny limbs folded before her in a sleeping pose. I grapple with the impossibility of gaining a grip that might allow her body to turn in the tight space and yet leave her unscathed. I imagine the tiny bones crushing, limbs dislocating, skull distorting. Fear wells in my throat as I choke back the thought.

I begin to read in earnest, trying to ignore the prenatal drumming of little feet on my full bladder.

A passage leaps out at me. It is Wilson’s theory that the human body is capable of conscious healing and other feats considered paranormal. It seems like timely advice. I consider the procedure ahead of me and for the first time, entertain the possibility of its success.

My name is called and I forget my earlier composure as I scuttle after the attendant into the realm flourescent lights and squeaky disinfected lino.

The attending midwife introduces herself as Wendy and begins her practiced routine of taking vitals, noting my history and checking my personal details. She works on being warm and friendly, using words like “gooshy” to lighten the medical setting. I stare out the window and try to appreciate her intention, hoping that the obstetrician who is about to wrap their hands around my child comes with more confidence inspiring vocubulary.

Wendy fixes a heart rate monitor above my bump. We both watch as the clear outline of an arm appears beside her hand. I wonder if my daughter has just thrown her first punch. The monitor begins to describe the foetal heartbeat and Wendy retreats to allow “baby to settle”.

I place my hands across my bump, palms down, imagining my warmth reaching her. “Okay Sweetheart, just me and you.” Together, we dose.

I am woken as the obstetrician enters. I note his relaxed demeanour and wonder how many pregnant bumps he has greased today.

He is all business and to my relief, does not mention “gooshy” once. Instead he delivers the facts. One intravenous shot of Ventolin for me, then three attempts, each of less than a minute each. If there is any sigh of foetal distress, he stops immediately. He mentions some people can become distressed by the Ventolin, in which case we will desist. Then he quotes the same risks and incidences, noting that in six years of turning up to 100 babies a week, he has never heard of a single harmed baby, much less witnessed one.

He banishes the last of my concerns with a single word. “Ready?”

I smile for the first time. “Let’s turn this baby”.

Again he retreats, leaving Wendy to prep me. She shoots a bashful look at his retreating back before leaning over me with an air of conspiracy.

“You may think this is silly, but I tell all my girls this.”

My curiosity is piqued, and the hair stands on the back of my neck as I feel myself step over an invisible line in reality.

Wendy leans closer, her face showing her earnest as she strives to keep her voice casual.

“Forget everything you’ve been told about this procedure, and just imagine the baby turning.”

She steps back, trying to read my face for disdain. Instead give her my first open smile.

“I can do that.” Ignorance is bliss, I think to myself.

>>

The procedure room is lit dimly with a warm coloured bulb and I relax into the reclined seat. Wendy checks a vial as the obstetrician looks over my notes. I stare at the ceiling, willing myself to relax and imagining my daughter floating expectantly in her bubble. We are both ready.

Wendy adds a shot of Ventolin to my drip line and observes me closely. The obs completes a silent count down, and peers into my face.

“Do you feel that?”
I am about to answer in the negative when I feel a surge of electricity from the base of my spine. The Ventolin surges through my veins, tumbling over itself in a frenzy to explode in my brain.

There are no words to answer. Instead, I hold my fingers up in the universal sign for “Okay” as a grin splits my face from ear-to-ear. I resist the urge to pump the air and wonder idly how much pharmaceutical Ventolin finds its way onto the illegal drug scene.

The obs takes my cue with a curt nod as Wendy reaches over to hold left my hand. I feel the cool of his fingers move across my gelled belly. They expertly assess the mass below the tissue, rippling across my skin like a seamstress smoothing fabric.

I cease to exist in my body. Suddenly, my baby girl and I are embracing on another plane. We lean towards each other, our foreheads touching, sharing a breath, a thought and the first moment of intense connection. Then she smiles and we float away from each other, back towards our earthbound vessels.

My eyes refocus in the gloom. The Obs is wiping his hands on a towel. He grins at me.

“Congratulations, and on your first go.”

I look down, expecting to see something. The bump stares back at me, perhaps just a little smugly.

26. Don’t enter awards competitions.

26. Don’t enter awards competitions.
Just don’t. It’s not good for you.

(Bruce Mau’s Incomplete Manifesto for Growth)

 

From my seat in the fifth row, I am an island of quiet in a sea of nervous students. I remain
oblivious to the nervous chatter around me as I calculate the optimum number of steps to take to the
stage, where to stand, how to position my torso and which hand to receive the award and which to
shake the dignitary’s hand with.

This is the student awards for the final year of my apprenticeship, and a moment I have been
anticipating for three years. With single-minded focus, I have thrown myself at the classroom
tasks, determined to excel in them, in order to both succeed in my career and earn the merits of
the printing school. The final prize and my goal, is Apprentice of the Year, across all trades.

And now, by my calculations, all that stands before me and that prize, are the formalities. I scan the
backs of the heads in front of me, picking out each of the student tradespeople I already know will
scoop Apprentice of the Year for their trade. Again, I weigh their student achievements against my
own and wonder if being the only female contestant will count for or against me in the voting.

Thankfully, the ceremony begins and cuts short my speculation about winning. I go back to
measuring the stage in paces, noting the presenter’s name and the name of the guest dignitary so
as to thank each in person and plotting where to stand for the photo.

When my year is announced, we file to the edge of the stage. My fellow apprentices bump against
me as they fidget nervously. I remain still, practising my acceptance and counting steps with
obsessive compulsion to ensure my slender heels are not caught in the cracks of the demountable
stage. We are announced and presented to polite applause and the occasional wolf-whistle which
seems to be acceptable congratulations in the printing trades.

When the class awards are complete, the four winning Apprentices of Print Machinery, Screen
Printing, Print Finishing and Prepress are invited to the stage. I am dwarfed by my competitors and
nervously shift my pink lacquered toenails away from their size ten feet, giggling to myself about
the unexpected necessity for steel-capped boots this far from the printing room.

The room grows still. Students hush and I catch a glimpse of my mum in the crowd. She smiles at
me and raises her crossed fingers, radiant in her pride. A smile darts across my mouth before I can
catch it and in the long moment before the announcement, we share our glee across the hush of
the room. A moment of celebration, private despite the gathered crowd and knowing despite the
impending announcement.

I look away as the presenter pauses with dramatic effect to build the atmosphere in the room. I
look across the crowd, noting my fellow students, friends, teachers and workmates. And I try to
capture the moment, with all the poignancy it has held for me over the past three years. For a
nano-second, I am swelled with pride and thrilled with expectation. In the next, the presenter
announces me and everything goes back to how many steps I need to take to place my hand on
the shield, shake the outstretched hand and pose for the photographer.

It has been three years in the making and I am puzzled to find myself detached and remote from
the elation I expected. In the brilliance of the camera flashes blossoming around me, I suddenly
understand that winning is not everything I wanted it to be. I hold my trophy aloft, I smile broadly, I
twinkle my eyes for the camera and I even gush in my acceptance speech, but inside I am
unmoved.

I had expected to feel a sense of arrival, but instead I feel myself returning to the search. I quest
out into the night, aware that I have just passed the limits of my reality map and that the path
before me disappears into unexpected darkness.

There seems only one sensible course of action. I tuck my shield under one arm, assume a winning
expression and ask directions to the nearest bar.

25. Don’t clean your desk

25. Don’t clean your desk.
You might find something in the morning that you can’t see tonight.

(Bruce Mau’s Incomplete Manifesto for Growth)

 

Melbourne Cup Day 2010

“Well, what do you want to do?”

The question hangs between us like a limp flag. Among the infinite phrases that might be said to
symbolise our relationship, this is one is a sure sign of danger. It means that for the next five
minutes, time will come to a screeching halt and attempt to crawl back into itself as the two of us
toss the decision listlessly between each other like cats playing with a mouse.

It’s as though we have both simultaneously wandered off the charted area of our decisive maps
and become mired in the sticky mud of indecision. Whilst there are times when the two of us
would fight to the death in order to trump the other in an argument, this limbo is an equally lethal
state. Years could be swallowed whole in the gaping yaw of it’s apathy. And impending Melbourne
Cups, could pass entirely unnoticed.

The impasse breaks with alarming synchronicity.

Our mutual responses sound together, as though rehearsed. “Let’s go” he says jumping off the
bed. “Let’s not” I say turning away.

Again, limbo threatens.

“Oh Fuck it, let’s just go!”

It’s the best decision to break an impasse, a snap one, based on no thought or rationale.
I glance at my watch. We have 25 minutes.

I swipe a thin black line deftly across my eye lid, snap silver rings into my ears and grab my tote
from the bed. Adam, who has bolted from the room in the instant of the decision, returns waving a
$20 note triumphantly. I am dressed, we have cash and time to dash to the pub.

We leap down the stairs like gazelles, or once a year punters with the scent of The Race.

It is mid-leap that that I turn my mind to my picks. It has been four years since picking a winner and
four years since I’ve started employing my psychic abilities to punting. All I can think of is my blog,
and the story I’ve been trying to capture on paper for four days. 25. Don’t Clean Your Desk.

It sits, unwritten, upstairs. A blinking curser on the screen, waiting.

The car door slams behind me as I make the connection. Don’t clean your desk. It’s on my desk. Somewhere, amongst the mess.

I collide with Adam on the stairs. “Where are you going now?” He demands.

“Hot tip!” I gasp as I race past, leaping up the stairs two at a time.

I reach my desk, and stare at it, willing the answer to reveal itself. I look at my watch. 20 minutes.
I ruffle papers, shift pens and flick desperately through my diary, trying to ignore the muffled
shouts from the garage.

Think. No, just notice… relax…  Arrgh….! A thousand esoteric principals, techniques and symbols
whirl in my head and I roll my eyes in the storm.

I look again, scanning for clues, colours, numbers, horse’s names, anything, to rise out of the chaos
of my desktop. It all just sits there, staring blankly at me with infuriating randomness. Adam shouts again, this time from the bottom of the stairs.

I recognise the malady of indecision in my loitering and dart back out of the room.

In the car I’m muttering to myself. 25, 25, 25… My iPhone responds sluggishly with only two bars of
reception but finally a list of the runners appears.  There are only 24 starters.

Okay, so… two and five, that’s seven. Right, so there’s my pick. ‘Seven’ I say aloud, making a
decision.

But as soon as the sound dies on my lips, I’m at it again, wishing I were a maths genius able to
divine some hidden, two-digit meaning, less than or equal to 24, from the detritus of my desk.

Adam swings into a carpark and we jump out, assuming a casual, yet hasty, saunter to the public bar.
We enter the pre-Cup excitement and are swamped by the eclectic crowd. An eager crush of road
workers, business suits, fascinators, board shorts and cocktail dresses mill about before the
screens of prancing horses and scrolling betting odds.

Again the voice in my head mutters to me. 25, 25, 25… Don’t clean your desk. I try to ignore it as I
wend my way to the bar, ignoring the surges of adrenalin that pump through me each time I
glimpse a glossy coat or tossing mane. I resist the urge to bolt after Adam as he heads to the TAB counter throwing coins at him and
urging him to put a dollar on everything. Cup frenzy has me in its grip, even if I am a late starter.

With beverages in hand, we stake a space beneath a screen. We are nestled between several
yards of protesting summer frocks stretched to breaking point on the one side and a group of board
short-clad surfers waving schooners and scratching their stubble on the other.

I try not to think of my picks, try to relax, enjoy my beverage and assume the confident air of a
winning punter. “What did we get again?” I ask.

Adam waves the ticket at me and promptly forbids all further speculation on the matter. We glance
at the screen and make the idle, pointless conversation of two people trying not to think about the
information in front of them.

Maluckyday prances past the screen. We speculate about the amount of money to be thrown at
such a name by drunk, once-a-year punters across the nation. “It’s ma-lucky day!”

It reminds me of the story I’ve been pondering for my blog. Not long after moving to the shire we
happened upon a back road whose name, Mafeking Rd, provided great amusement. Thus began
numerous quips, all with ridiculous accents and ending in “It’s ma feking road! No, it’s my feking road!!” Our merriment
comes to an abrupt halt when the car develops a sudden, ear-splitting noise. We pull over, call the
NRMA and settle in for a long wait.

Through my blog I speculate on the importance of not having cleaned your car when facing such a wait. Over the next hour we pore through the contents of
the glove box, discussing every golf tee, analysing every crumpled receipt and pondering past
adventures re-lived in the discarded and forgotten brochures stuffed under the seats.

The last minutes before the race ebb away as we reminisce fondly. The nervous energy dissipates
and suddenly, even though we didn’t back it, our hearts are with Maluckyday.

The seconds tick and the starter seems to wait for the air to become charged with
suppressed excitement. Knuckles grip white around glassed beverages and punters across the
nation lean forward with a collective intake of breath.

And so they race, with the hearts and minds of millions riding with them.

Two minutes later, Maluckyday streaks past the finish post behind Americain. We’ve just donated
$32 to the TAB.

Amidst the slightly crumpled fascinators and stale cigarette breath I speculate that although
another year has passed without a win, I am getting closer.  I decide that next year, if Maluckyday
is back, I’ll write my blog early, take the day off and donate $50 to the TAB in his honour.