A love letter to my son on his 5th birthday.

Posted in Heart, Letters, Parenting by Alice

Darling, you’re 5! A 5-year-old person. And what a fine job you’ve done. You, who from your very instance, have been an experience of impossible beauty. Especially for me.

Sometimes, life will really present you an opportunity to grow up. And I mean ‘grow up’ however you wish to see it. Whatever it was or will be for you. Whatever makes you wiser. Or stronger. More resilient. Whatever makes you hold true to what you really know for certain, no longer willing to be distracted by that which has no answer. Whatever pushes you closer to where you are meant to be. And to who. But see it in its metaphor too. To stretch toward to sun.

You were that great occurrence in my life. You are, every day.

My eyes opened with yours, Theo. And in that moment, I knew everything would be alright.

There’s no one I’d rather walk a long road with.

You’re all my best wishes,
Mama xx

(Last years letter: here.)

30May2014

Mother Knows Best: casual wisdom from my Mother – made into inspirational messages #5

Posted in Heart by Alice

30May2014

A morning in Philadelphia.

Posted in Heart by Alice

A morning off in Philadelphia.

State Flower (The state bird is the Ruffed Grouse!)/ Social realism. Granite relief murals on the side of the 9th Street Post Office. / City Hall. The figure on the top is the city’s founder, William Penn. There once stood a sort of gentlemen’s agreement that no building could be built higher than he stood. / Reading Terminal Market / Where the Constitution and the Bill of Rights was signed. And where I got growled by security guards for bypassing the 200+ people waiting in line to see the Liberty Bell across the road. (Pro tip: the back wall of the room that houses the bell is made of glass!) / Chasing Dreams. Outside the National Museum of Jewish American History. / A cute place I can’t remember! But I’m sure Benjamin Franklin had something to do with it. / Oh, Nerd Street. / Above an ice cream parlour. / A handsome fellow I almost got run over trying to say hello to, near Penn’s Landing (if anyone knows his name, please let me know). / And then, after all that, I curled back into bed at the hotel with my jet lag and these treats from Reading Terminal Market. / Okay…and maybe also these. (Coconut and Key Lime from Beilers. They were 95c each, and honestly so good I can’t even. Sitting on a pristine hotel bed, in the dappled morning light, on the other side of the world, eating a donut may be my new experience to beat.)

(Click on the photo’s to enlarge.)

30May2014

Poem: Stillness Dancing.

Posted in Heart by Alice

As seen as a part of the Poetry on Posters campaign and in the Phantom Billstickers Café Reader #3.

With joyous love and tremendous thanks to Phantom. Who have been so kind as to invite me to perform at this:

If you know anyone in Philadelphia, make sure and send them along. It’s going to be really something.

Mother Knows Best: casual wisdom from my Mother – made into inspirational messages #4

8May2014

La cucina piccola fa la casa grande: A Snapshot.

Posted in Heart, Parenting by Alice

‘A little kitchen makes a large home.’

While I make dinner they sit at the kitchen table. Their limbs swinging from chairs they still have to climb on to. There are always pens and paper there, in a reckless pile. Scissors making fast confetti of yesterdays masterpieces.

I have a poetry show tomorrow night; I’ve been practicing to the bathroom mirror. They applaud in all the right wrong places, which makes me feel special. Theo writes his first poem.

‘Clouds brung rain
the sunshine brung light
Kings and knights
fight with their swords
the end’.

I couldn’t be prouder. He doesn’t want to read it aloud to me, though he tells me I am a good audience. He says he will only perform it at the Pallet Pavilion, where I did my last show. Straight to the top, Bubba. To the moon.

Meanwhile, while the vegetables steam, my daughter makes something elaborate. A piece of paper, folded as a fan. Covered in hieroglyphics of deep meaning, if the fervency of their scribble is anything to go by. It’s covered in glue.

‘Mama! Put on your boots and get me some string! I have made a fox trap! We need to hang it in a tree right now! We’re going to catch bad foxes in the garden! …are there foxes in New Zealand? I’ve made this! Just in case!’

I tie up the ends with a length of pink wool. I do it all wrong, naturally. I’m just he capable hands of my daughters vision. She takes over, the former metre cut down by little pink hands in little pink scissors; she’s ruthless and maniacal, mad with power. Tiny pieces of fluff now stuck on to the fox trap.

And I realise, just now, I’ve had a child’s hood, liberated from its jacket (perhaps to catch foxes) on my head this whole time.

Mother Knows Best: casual wisdom from my Mother – made into inspirational messages #3

11Apr2014

A love letter to my Mother on her birthday.

Posted in Heart, Letters by Alice

Happy Birthday, Mumma.

Right now, my weird sausage dog is repeatedly trying to eat a small black diamante that Mabel has stashed in my bed for safe keeping from her brother. You’d be horrified, but not surprised by that statement. Don’t worry, I’ve taken it off him.

Thank you for being so accepting of me. Though I’d live in the bed if I could and my will is made of iron and I’ve been so messy and both too quiet and too loud and there’s always a book in my handbag and I used to crash my bike into the house when I’d been out drinking and make you come out, in your nighty, and search the garden for my cell phone, which turned out to be in my hand. And there was that time I had a baby in your kitchen. And the time I put you in a headlock when I had a baby in my bedroom. Thank you for being so endlessly there for me. Especially when my choices were so far from what you would have wished for me. You always welcomed me home.

Thank you for always creating an environment of empathy, of care and of humour. Thank you for being a safe place. And not just for me and the babies and my myriad of bizarre and brilliant friends and animals over the years. But in the work you do. The excellence you are able to see in people. Your ability to nurture and nourish. Your enthusiasm. Your passion for your art and your interests is forever inspiring and motivating. ‘It feels good to work hard’ is such a powerful and promising lesson, especially for someone who was so scared of beginning. Who is scared of who they might, or mightn’t be. What they can or can’t do. The strengths you have taught me by example are some of the best things about me. I know a lot of people feel that way about you.

Thank you for always telling me the truth, even when I wasn’t listening. Thank you for your boundless love, even when I was working so hard to test all boundaries. You have taught me about worth and value and truth and love. You have shown me how to be a mother and how to be myself. You’ve shown me the importance of both.

Theo has sat next to me the whole time I’ve been writing this, asking all his questions, wanting to make sure I get it just right. Mabel has just burst into the room; ‘Mama!’ she’s roared in my face, clutching on to me with force. ‘I know what I want to make Gabba! I want to make her a statue of a duck because she misses her ducks so much!’. You’re loved, Mumma. You’re loved, you’re loved, you’re loved.

Your vitality enriches everything it comes into contact with. You’re so beautiful. You’re such a gift.

Happy Birthday to you.

All my love,
Alice Elizabeth Lambikins Bunnykins.

I like Gabba’s carrots. (a message from Theo)

8Apr2014

A Letter to My Daughter: when she found herself lost in the supermarket.

Posted in Heart, Letters, Parenting by Alice

You’re carrying around a huge pink handbag, embroidered with flowers. Inside it are a small tan Pug dog plush (He’s your new favourite; you’ve named him Pug-Pug) and a Kelly green copy of the Heinemann’s New Zealand Dictionary. It used to belong to my grandmother. Her name is written, in her ever-elegant cursive, inside the front cover. You think this dictionary is best for telling your stories, and you flip open its pages and begin.

You have told me today that when you are older you will live in a windmill. That you will ride a purple motorcycle and you will look after yourself. You told me today, like every day, to remember that we are always in each others hearts, no matter where we are.

I reminded you of this when, yesterday, you found yourself lost, so ever briefly, in between isles in the local supermarket. I saw on your face, that expansion of reality. Saw you feel so lost, so alone. I swept you up; so wanting and willing to take that feeling from you. To keep you from it and have it never bother you again. To stuff you inside my t-shirt, where you lived for so long when you were cooking then new. I held on to you, laid safe in my arms, and kissed the tears from your ears and told you all those truths. All our old truths. Truths as old as ever, as old as you. And some new ones, too. Some new ways to find your way. Because you are, and you will and nothing will hold you back.

Because you’re a girl on a purple motorbike, riding home to her windmill. And in your handbag is your dog, he’s named Pug-Pug. And he’s wearing a helmet and reading aloud his favourite words from the your Kelly green dictionary. A book that’s helped 4 generations before you, find their words, so a part of your story. And you won’t need to remember because you’ll know it forever, we’re together. We’re in each others hearts.

You’re the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart.

Love,
Mama xx