#67 In the Summer time

Lucky enough to grow up on the coast, my childhood Summer memories involve hot days, Summer fruits, days at the beach or swimming in our backyard pool, and barbecues. Lots of barbecues. We were either in water or we were eating. So much fun. Mindful fun. Calm. Bliss.

We had a couple of really hot days here this past weekend and I joined my sister and brother in law and my nephews at the beach. We had body boards and a blow up raft and we had a ball. I haven't spent that much time in the water in years. We squealed with delight as our raft crashed into waves and when we caught the long ride in on a wave on our body boards - the boys taught me how to use one and now I'm hooked!

We then got take away and sat in my front garden for hours, chatting with mum and dad. I was in heaven and we asked ourselves why we would ever consider going away on holidays at Summer when we have this in our backyard.

I also got to spend an afternoon with some friends in their pool after a barbecue lunch. I felt like a kid again. What a weekend.

Today is Monday and I'm back at work, but I still feel so refreshed and calm. I'm making my resolution right here to spend more time in and with the ocean this year. I've heard there's an 'old ladies' group that meets Sunday mornings at the beach to go body boarding together. Maybe I'll give that a try.....

This Wednesday I'm off to count penguins again on Middle Island - I'll keep you posted!

Happy New Year!

My beach - Warrnambool beach

#61 Conscious Uncoupling

I've been thinking about this blog post ever since I listened to Cold Play's new album Ghost Stories on repeat during a four hour car ride recently.

Ghost Stories is thought to be Chris Martin's version of a mixed tape for Gwyneth Paltrow - in reverse.  Normally, mixed tapes come at the beginning of a relationship, not the end. 

After listening to the album though, one could easily be mistaken that this is one massive love letter. 
Take Sky Full of Stars for example.  I dare anyone to watch this film clip and not smile widely, feeling the love.

Magic is no exception to my theory that the album is all about love.  So where does love fit into divorce?

What is this concept of "conscious uncoupling" and does it lessen the pain?

This is what Dr Habib Sadeghi and Dr Sherry Sami had to say about it on Goop.com.

"To change the concept of divorce, we need to release the belief structures we have around marriage that create rigidity in our thought process. ... The idea of being married to one person for life is too much pressure for anyone...If we can recognize that our partners in our intimate relationships are our teachers, helping us evolve our internal, spiritual support structure, we can avoid the drama of divorce and experience what we call a conscious uncoupling.

A conscious uncoupling is the ability to understand that every irritation and argument was a signal to look inside ourselves and identify a negative internal object that needed healing. Because present events always trigger pain from a past event, it’s never the current situation that needs the real fixing. It’s just the echo of an older emotional injury. If we can remain conscious of this during our uncoupling, we will understand it’s how we relate to ourselves internally as we go through an experience that’s the real issue, not what’s actually happening.

It’s conscious uncoupling that prevents families from being broken by divorce and creates expanded families that continue to function in a healthy way outside of traditional marriage."

I do believe it is the human condition to avoid pain.  What if consciously and respectfully recognising when a relationship has run its course and mutually agreeing to end it could actually avoid the anger part of grief?

I'm assuming no-one would want to avoid the sadness.  No grief would surely equal no love - wouldn't it??

What I wonder though, is that while it's all blog posts and album releases now, what will happen to Chris and Gwyn when we fast-forward 5 years.  When one wants to live in a different country with the children.  When the other moves into a new relationship or relationships.  When missed opportunities require blame in some direction.

What will conscious uncoupling look like then?

Would love to hear your thoughts?  Have you consciously uncoupled and pulled it off - or not?

My husband and I, after we 'consciously uncoupled' in 2010.

 

#53 The Glamorous Cancer

Some people refer to breast cancer as the 'glamorous' cancer.  When you think about it, it makes sense.  It's all pink and feathers and receives a lot of attention.  In October, Breast Cancer Awareness month, everything turns pink!  Buildings, water.... even Tim Tams.

Ironically enough, breast cancer is anything but glamorous. 

When I was diagnosed four years ago, I was lucky enough to have a fabulous 'mentor' Fi.  Fi had been where I was about to go, two years earlier.  She knew what was coming.  Fortunately, I didn't.  Otherwise I wouldn't have shown up for treatment.

After each cycle, Fi turned up with something different.  Lip balm, just as my lips were drying out.... how did she know?  Ginger tea, just as I felt nauseated..... but, how did she know?  Flowers, just as I couldn't see any colour in my day.....how did she know I'd be feeling that way?

I've come to learn that this is the way breast cancer works.  Now it's my turn to pay the universe back for giving me Fi.  I'm currently in a position to show that level of care and compassion for someone else about to begin their treatment journey.

So far, I have a pink box currently holding a pink journal to write her thoughts in, ginger snap biscuits to ease her nausea, ginger tea, a beautiful tea cup because I was given one by a special friend and I cherished it, gift vouchers for acupuncture donated by another special friend and fantastic acupuncturist Karen Greer, a heat pack to ease her pain, and lip balm for those dry lips.....

Is it paying it forward, or backward, I don't know.  I just feel blessed to be here in the position I am in.  I remember being back at the beginning, never truly believing I'd be able to one day look back and say, "Look how far I've come."

Sending all my love to everyone having treatment and living with cancer at the moment.  You are stronger than you know.

x

#42 Annie Isobel Gall (Magill)

Dear Nan,

If we were lucky enough to still have you with us, today would have been your 100th birthday!  You looked forward to this day over my entire lifetime with you as you anticipated receiving your letter from the Queen.  How I wish you were here to share it with us.

Not a day goes by where I don't think about you.  I will always love you and I miss you more than I can try to explain with words.

This is my little tribute to the amazing lady that you were to me.  Happy 100th birthday Nan.  I was so blessed to have you as my grandmother and even more blessed to have shared the first 34 years of my life with you.

Your adoring granddaughter,

Jodie

 

Nana's Parents - Edward Margaret Magill on their Wedding Day

 

 

Nana as a baby with older sister Mary

 

 A letter from Edward to Nana in 1940

He signs "E. Magill" just as Nana always signed her letters to us "A. I. Gall."

 

 Edward Magill

 

 

Margaret Magill

 

 

Nana's 4 children including my Mum on the left

 

 

A letter from Nana to my Aunty accompanying the letters from her father.  She burnt many of her letters, cards and photos before she died.  I think that's what she is mentioning here.  Such a shame.  I'd love to have been able to read those now.

 

Nana and I on her 90th Birthday - A rare photo where she isn't telling us to get away with the camera!

 

 

 

#19, A Gold Tooth and A Glass Eye

It was the best of times and it was the worst of times.

It always feels that way at family gatherings.  Particularly as now we only ever seem to gather at someone’s funeral. This time it’s for my Grandad.  Jock.

Jock had three kids, two daughters and a son, my Dad, in the middle.  They each had their own families and all lived in different cities.  Each of them carried their own set of values and moral compasses along with very individual methods for coping with life’s ups and downs. 

Grandad’s funeral was yesterday.  A stranger spoke about his life based upon stories his two daughters told her.  She couldn't pronounce Leven, where he was born, so she just said Scotland.

I didn’t have a close relationship with my paternal grandparents, although Gran and I mended ours just before she died.  So blessed.  That doesn’t mean I don’t have fond memories.

I adored our trips to Tumblong to stay at the green house with the chicken coop.  Grandad and Laddie would always be wandering around fixing something.  The bakery truck would come right to the door to sell us fresh made pies for lunch.  I can still recall the smell if I close my eyes.  Gran would sing old Scottish songs to us, with us.  Grandad would tell us tall tales about his glass eye and gold teeth that he was going to leave us when he died.

His hair was always shiny with bryll cream and their toilet had WC written on the door.  Their house was where I learnt what that stands for.

One phone call, after my Nan had died, my Gran and I talked about our difficult relationship.  She summised that she felt it was because we were so similar, that we often butted heads.  Gran then told me that she thought I was much braver than she was.  I laughed at that suggestion.  She was referring to the time I moved to Spain to live.  I told her that she and Grandad were much braver than I.  They had moved their young family to a country on the other side of the world, sight unseen, with very little money in their pocket.  That was brave.  And they built a life here, giving us the privilege of being born in such a lucky country. 

We are all proud of our Scottish heritage.  And no matter what else, I’ll always be so proud and so grateful for two forty year old Scots, for taking such a risk and for being so hopeful about their future and the futures of their family.

Rest in Peace Gran and Grandad.

Vale Jock Fleming.

R is for Race Car

This one is written by my six year old nephew Tommy.  We wrote it as we drove to watch his dad drive a formula one race car, as a birthday gift from his family.  It’s short, but very sweet.

 

My dad is learning how to drive a race car.  Sometimes race cars crash.  Race cars go very fast.

My dad is a builder.  Dad is nervous and shy about driving the race car.  I know he’s shy because he doesn’t like to talk to strangers.

N is for Nan

Annie Isabella Gall was born on January 28^th, 1914.  Daughter to Edward and Margaret Magill, she grew up on a farm in South West Victoria.  At 17 years of age she married my grandfather Albert Alfred Gall, great, great grandson of John Gall, a Scottish convict who was shipped to Australia for stealing cattle.

My beloved Nan would recount fond stories of driving the horse and cart to basketball games with her siblings, and of sleeping in a tent in the front yard of the house as there wasn’t enough room inside. 

Nan had a way of making each of her eight grandchildren feel like they were her favourite, and I was no exception.  Lucky enough to live in the same town as her, I spent much of my childhood with her, sitting at her feet, enjoying her company.

Blatant honesty was one of her traits.  “When are you going to cut that terrible hair?!” she was often exclaim as I entered her house. 

She would sign every card and letter with her signature A. I. Gall – never Nan.  I now have her signature tattooed inside my right wrist – a great source of comfort.  When she died in 2006, I was shown letters written to her by her father – all signed “Edward Magill”.  So that’s where she got it from.  It felt all the more special.

Life has not been the same since she left.  I miss her every day. 

A. I. Gall – Nan – appears throughout my memoir as I have used letters written to her throughout my cancer journey to tell my story.

I love you Nan.

K is for Kiss

"A kiss is a lovely trick designed by nature to stop speech when words become superfluous."
Ingrid Bergman.

In my opinion, nothing can ever truly equal the beauty of the anticipation of the first kiss with the person you are falling in love with.

My first kiss didn't come until I was 15 years old, with my first true love.  I'm sure it was nothing like the amazing 'movie kiss' I had dreamt of over the years in the lead up, but what I can remember is the sweet anticipation.

It's been the same in every relationship I've had since - not that there have been too many!  And I have to say, the thought that I would one day get to experience that feeling again (I hope!) helped a tiny bit when my marriage ended.

Here is The Kiss by Auguste Rodin.  It's a sculpture I've been lucky to see three times now, and one of the relatively few pieces of art that has moved me.  There's something about the way she holds her head.

What are some of your favourite movie kisses or works of art depicting the delectable past-time??

#1 Blog Life Begins at 40

The last time I wrote a blog, life was very different.

In 2009, my husband and I were struggling with the decision of whether or not to have a baby.  Although I didn't know it at the time, research for the blog helped me sort through the confusion and chaos inside my head and my body, and the entire experience of blog writing was nothing short of an ablution for my soul.

In the short version, the marriage ultimately ended amicably one month before I was diagnosed with breast cancer in March, 2010.  Breast cancer treatment took up the rest of 2010 and eventually removed any possibility of me having children. 

In some marvellous stroke of genius by the universe however, surviving cancer provided a level of perspective that has made all of the loss and change over the past three years, okay.  It's all okay.

At times, I have found great pleasure, peace and calm in the smallest and seemingly most insignificant of things.  Colours have seemed brighter.  The smell of Summer in the air, or the feel of rain drops on my face have brought such happiness and satisfaction to my day.  The desire for the things I don't have has faded and in its place I feel more happiness than I have since I was a little girl.

Throughout treatment, I held my 40th birthday as a very significant milestone.  I figured that if I made it to 40, I would most likely be well with hair that would help me somewhat resemble my old self.  Turning 40 would be not only a birthday milestone, but it would be a celebration of life.  The life I had already lived, as well as the future I still had in front of me. 

Allowing myself to look forward more than a day at a time has been a real challenge, especially once treatment ended.  I continue to struggle with maintaining a balance and not take on too much, trying to live an entire lifetime in a shorter period, because there is no guarantee that I will have as many years left as I would once have thought.

My bucket list is overflowing and time is of the essence.  Writing is on the top of the list and I am in the process of writing my first book.  But I want to write in different ways and here I am, back blogging.  I am very into lists of things you must do before you die, so I have included my own What to Check Out Before You Check Out.  See the right hand margin of the blog - I'd love to hear everyone's suggestions, so please feel free to comment.

Predominantly though, through this blog I hope to work my way through my ever growing bucket list, as well as make myself accountable - to not allow myself to lose the precious perspective I have gained - and to live my life, one moment at a time.