Summer dreams

There was a moment while we were walking along the closed-off streets, and a band of teenaged buskers played Riders on the Storm across the way. We hustled from shade-patch to shade-patch, sunburn stinging our thighs despite having left the beach by ten in the morning. 

Ralph’s hand was sweating in mine as he told me all about the water-soaker he’d just blown $6.95 of his pocket-money on at the pharmacy. The stream of information seemed endless: I learned all about the intricacies of high-tech material that had gone into the making of it (plastic, foam), the hydraulics that enabled it to both suck and spurt water, the additional equipment required for maximum impact (a beach, or failing that a bucket), and the extraordinarily complex battle-plan that would, no doubt, ensure him victory in the battle against his sister on the morrow. 

I had a moment while we walked together and Ralph talked, my head dizzy with the heat, when it felt as though I was somewhere else, outside myself, watching our little family tableau like a movie. 

I was me of 20 years ago, passively watching a middle-aged mother and her child winding in and out of beachside shops on a summer holiday. The little boy was carrying a water-soaker and chatting non-stop, almost drowning out the squeak of his flip-flops, and all the sounds merged with the chatter of a hundred other holiday-makers, shop jingles in open doors, distant waves, and Riders on the Storm which had blurred and distorted into something else by The Doors that I couldn’t quite remember. 

The scene was still happening, Ralph was still talking, but the me of 20 years ago couldn’t identify with any of this. It didn’t belong to her, it was somebody else’s son and they were living somebody else’s life. 

I thought, “How is this even me?” Because I’m still me of 20 years ago, every bit as much as I’m me of today, and I can’t seem to make them fit together. So different are these two women, their lives, their choices… opposite, almost. And yet I was happy 20 years ago, and I am happy today. How does that work? 

We found a bakery and bought vanilla slices because vanilla slices are the best things on earth and we are on holidays and anyway, the diet starts tomorrow. The vanilla slice brought me back into my body which was bad timing, because Ralph chose that moment to open a bottle of fizzy water and it exploded all over all of us, so my body definitely felt that. On the other hand, the day was so hot that nobody minded being wet. 

*. * *

I can hear cicadas in the bottle-brush trees outside. Piercing, they sing in unison, their chorus ebbing and flowing like ocean waves and never fully receding. There is sand all over the kitchen floor and flip flops strewn from one end of the room to the other, where the puppy has picked them up, one at a time, and discarded them. I know I should probably clean up but I sip water instead and open my computer to write, because these are the last days of the summer holidays, and I’m not time-travelling any more. I’m mindful - so mindful - that I’m here and now.

And in 20 more years, when I’m outside tending the apple trees on the tiny farm I hope I’ll own by then and suddenly and unexpectedly float back to the me of January 2021, I want to remember exactly what it felt like. 

Apples, autumn, and broken hearts

It was a poignant moment. We were out for our daily exercise, the children rolling their scooters through piles of leaves and whorling autumn winds, turning the footpath into a miniature circus maximus (a circus minimus?) for their two-wheeled chariots.

There was a letter for Scout in the post and seeing it reminded me that she had a birthday coming up. (Eight! How did that happen?) And that for once, I’d have to plan ahead, this time relying on the already slow post for any birthday shopping.

I stopped her mid-chariot race and asked her to think about what she might like for her birthday this year (“no promises, but you can always let me know”). “OK!” she agreed, then scooted off again with her brother, no doubt happily dreaming up a wish-list of plastic monstrosities and impractical clothes. I braced myself.

Several more blocks of walking and scooting passed, several more mountains of leaves, but surprisingly, the requests failed to come. “I just can’t think of anything,” she told me at last.

On we scooted, more races, still more leaves, until she circled back to me again. “Mum, I don’t know what I want for my birthday because the only thing I actually want, I can’t have.

“I just want my friends.”

And that right there is how hearts break.

But in happier news…

Lingering autumn sunshine at the start of this week enticed us back out into the garden, where I cut, trimmed and coaxed all that was end-of-summer and overblown back into order, ready for the winter sleep. I lifted out the dahlia tubers, cut back the salvia, pulled out the over-zealous wild violets, gently pruned the standard roses and ruthlessly pruned the climbing roses. Out came the elderberry suckers, finished sunflowers and dried-up cosmos. In went the sprouted celery-bottom, a winter tarragon, and a neat row of garlic cloves.

All of the above was completed in stages, in between me being escorted away in gentle but no-uncertain terms by the bees, all of whom appeared to be knee deep in a case of autumn-mania. They’d permit me to dig and cut for only so long, before one would start circling my face, buzzing and nudging until I hot-footed it back to the house. There I’d hesitate in the shade of the balcony, calling out futilely, “You’ll thank me in the spring!” before venturing, inch by inch, back to the garden bed. Ten minutes later, we’d start the whole parade all over again.

When the bees permitted, I discovered the first spikes of daffodils, bluebells or snowflakes - I’m not sure which, it could be any combination of the three - peeping up from among the fallen leaves, harbingers of future colour.

A day or two earlier, on the weekend, Scout and I had walked to CERES in what was frankly freezing rain. It was such a pleasant walk together despite the weather, holding hands and chatting about everything and nothing. Once there we picked up a new pair of gardening gloves for her (which she wore home to ward off the cold wind), and a dibber for me, which was the point of the excursion. And here is a great mystery: why is it that as I hurtle towards my fifth decade on this planet, I have only just now purchased a dibber for planting bulbs?

Every year, putting those bulbs down has been an arduous, time-consuming task, trying to dig holes with a spade, deep and narrow, while not disturbing the roots of any surrounding plants. But yesterday, I put down 20 white bluebells, 10 snowflakes, 5 spare tulips, 10 allium drumsticks, and 10 nerines (all unplanned, Edna Walling style, by gently tossing small handfuls in the air and planting them wherever they landed). It probably took me less than half an hour to plant the lot, with zero disruption of the roses or any other pernickety plants nearby. Thank you dibber, my new best friend.

I’ve been researching a big list of seasonal produce, and painting them as I go. The biggest insights so far have been just how little I know.

Take apples, for example. Apples are autumn fruit and we probably all know that. Even I knew that, so I didn’t think there would be lessons to learn about eating apples in season. But I was wrong! Because here in Australia, apples are available all year ‘round, in both the supermarkets and all the fruit and vegetable shops. Even at the fruit and veg markets. And I’ve never really thought about where they are coming from but, if you’d asked me, I’d probably have hazarded a guess that Australia has a (relatively) moderate client, and it’s big, so the apple season lasts longer and spreads across several months in several States.

As it turns out, no.

The apple season lasts a couple of months at most. And here’s something I should have known but didn’t: once the apples are picked, the ‘bloom’ (the natural wax on them) is blasted off, to be replaced by a new wax made up of either shellac - secretions made by lac beetles - or carnauba, which comes from Brazilian palm trees. Then the apples are put into cold storage for up to a year. That apple you buy in December has probably been sitting in the ‘fridge since April, and may or may not be coated in beetle secretions.

Anyhoo, we all get to choose how we shop and what we eat, and I’m not immune to the fact that there is an enormous amount of privilege in me making that statement. But my point is, no judgement! Eat the December apples, don’t eat the December apples. Wax on, wax off, Daniel-san. But isn’t it nice to make choices that are informed? In the future I’ll be keeping one eye on my research, and the other on the calendar to find out when the farmers’ markets reopen, redoubling my efforts to shop direct from the growers.

And in the meantime, the winds have picked up. The autumn leaves are falling. Let’s play!

The wuthering north

We drove into Cumbria after dark, just as the winds were picking up. Outside it was right on zero degrees, although the little weather app on my iPhone said, helpfully, “feels like -6”. It did.

The journey had been almost twice as long as we’d anticipated, an unlucky accumulation of London traffic that had continued for three hours outside London; a sun that set at half-past-three in the afternoon, leaving us to navigate our oversized hire-car through steep and winding country roads after dark; and, speaking of navigation, numerous opportunities to take wrong turns and get lost, which we did (there were even road-signs saying “don’t trust the sat-nav”).

From bed that night I could just see the soft, watery light of the crescent moon behind the still-gathering clouds, filtering and refracting through diamond-paned windows that had filtered and refracted moonlight into this room for 500 years, exaggerating the shadows of the beams in our ceiling. The wind was picking up, battering around the ancient walls of our gatehouse in a beautiful fury.

“I love it here,” I whispered to my husband, although he might already have been asleep. “I can’t even tell you. I really love it here!”

The moon was long gone by morning, and the sun was doing its best job of hiding, too, but the grey dawn revealed bare trees and stone walls and crumbling ruins and bracken-covered hills as far as the eye could see. I ran outside in my slippers, hugging my pyjamas close, and drew in the wild view like oxygen.

Back inside, I put on the kettle and made eggs on toast for my family, while the wind positively howled. “Wow!” said the children (about the weather, not my eggs). And as we sat down at the farmhouse table under a window, beside a cast-iron fire that was cracking and popping and spreading warmth, I thought, “We are inside Wuthering Heights.”

Naturally, there was a pretty village nearby, where one could find welcoming locals with musical accents and a cafe with cockle-warming, home-cooked meals. Also naturally, there was a castle ruin, a 900-year-old edifice on an ancient mound that was once settled by Danes and was still part of Scotland until a thousand years ago or so.

I climbed the hill to the ruins alone, while the rest of my family went to find somewhere to buy groceries. The promised “ice rain” had begun, and I have honestly never felt as cold as I did atop that wild and windswept hill, not even on the January night I walked home beside the Hudson River in New York with my friend, and we learned later that it had been -18 degrees.

It was the wind. The wind that burned my ears with cold like razors, stung my eyes with dry tears, tipped me sideways, and genuinely sucked the breath from my lungs whenever I faced into it. Literally breathtaking.

How is it that this world is so full of so many beautiful places? How can we bear it, in our hearts? We only stayed in this ancient gatehouse, perched on the edge of lovely emptiness, for two nights, but I cried for the beauty of it all three times.

I didn’t want to leave. But then, that’s also how I’d felt when first we climbed the steep, cobblestoned streets of Dinan, when we made our picnic under the trees at the castle ruins of Lehon, when we lay down in sunshine among fields of wildflowers in the grounds of Hever Castle, and when we lost ourselves inside the ancient, golden-hued forest of Broceliande. I know I’ve talked about this on my blog before, the twin concepts of home and belonging.

When I married my husband, we made the song Home is wherever I’m with you by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes the unofficial theme-song of our marriage, a testament to where we’d been and where we were going, after I’d left New York to live with him. Every time we moved to a new city, I sought out ways to make it feel like home. I enrolled in a Master’s Degree when we moved to Queensland. I planted a garden when we moved to Sydney. I volunteered when we moved to Adelaide. When we moved to Melbourne, I was already pregnant with my daughter, so new mothers became my community.

I don’t quite know when I started growing restless again. Partly, I think it had to do with having children. The day you hold that new baby in your arms, your world instantly unfolds like a meadow of night-blooming cereus: dazzling flowers, hypnotically-scented, and all opening en masse in one, magic night. But parenthood can also draw your world inside (like the night-blooming cereus closing at dawn, maybe?), and even if you don’t have kids, you’ve heard enough stories from friends and siblings and aunties and grandparents… or read enough mummy-blogs… that you don’t need me to talk about that odd and disorienting and beautiful and isolating parenthood bubble right now.

My point is that becoming a mother, while undeniably the best decision I ever made and the best thing I will ever do, also taught me to see my home-town in a different way. The exciting cafes and galleries and festivals and street-art and food trucks and pop-up events that once helped me fall in love with my city became, almost overnight, all-but lost to me, sitting at home with sleeping (or not-sleeping) babies while my husband worked 100 hours a week.

I have watched the world go on without me, from the distance of the Internet.

And when you take away all the wonderful things about life in the city, you start to notice the restrictive things. The lack of fresh air, open spaces, and trees. The reliance on other things (shops, cars, telephones) for even the most basic necessities of life. With a fidgeting toddler in one arm and a hungry baby in the other, the world feels as though it doesn’t belong to you any more, and for those of us used to being “in control” in the workplace, this new workplace feels about as out of control as workplaces come.

So, as I stood alone on that ancient hilltop in the breath-stealing wind, these were some of the thoughts that were going through my mind. I wanted to live in this place more than I’d wanted to live anywhere, ever. I sort-of cried, again, but I didn’t truly cry, because the wind stung my eyes and dried my tears before they could fall.

We won’t be moving to Cumbria any time soon, no matter how badly I want it. And the truth is that even more than I want that open-fielded life, I want to stay with the people who fill my life right now. They are my home, wherever I go (Home is wherever I’m with you).

After I climbed down from the castle ruins, I found my family in a little second-hand shop on the high street, deep in conversation with three locals who had each lived in this village and known one another for eight decades, or more. They recommended the fish and chips shop for lunch and, an hour or so later when we bustled in from the rain and found somewhere to sit, our new friends were already ensconced around a table at the back.

As we left, my husband secretly paid for their lunch and another round of their coffees, and it’s times like this that I remember why I first made him my home.

---

Our favourite new children's book

Last week my first-blogging-and-then-real-life friend, children’s book author Zanni Louise, sent my children an advanced copy of her new story, Archie and the Bear.  I can't even tell you how much we love this story. Especially Ralph, who is three, and for whom it seems to have struck a wonderful chord. The story is at once magical and mysterious, and also heartwarming and homely. 

Archie and the Bear is about celebrating imagination. Just going with it.

Yesterday, Ralph found a piece of ribbon and asked me to tie it around his forehead. "It is a cap to make me more super-y," he informed me. Once I had tied the ribbon on he straightened his back and balled his fists. "You may call me," he announced grandly, "Super Boy." And he stayed in-character as Super Boy for the entire day, saving the day from all kinds of super-villains both seen (Scout) and unseen (the cat), and demonstrating a dizzying array of super-powers to combat the challenges besetting him on his heroic journey. 

Nobody told him "You don't really have super-powers," or "You're only a pretend super-hero." 

There are plenty of studies to remind us that for children, the benefits of imaginative role-play are numerous, helping children teach themselves impulse regulation, language development, social skills, conflict resolution, and ways to resolve real-life tensions and fears. 

But I also think day-dreaming is pretty special for us grown-ups as well. Do you ever like to imagine out loud what would happen if...? Imagine if I won a million dollars... Imagine if we moved to France... Imagine if I quit my job and pursued my dream full time... 

Those imaginings are like little head-holidays. They are like trying on costumes and testing out other lives, knowing that we can return to the safety of our own lives any time we like.

But how crappy is it when you start a sentence with "Imagine if," and the person beside you ends it with an ice-cold bucket of reality? You can't afford it. We don't have the time. You'd be bored in a week. Ok maybe they're right (or maybe they're not), but that's not the point. I'm dreaming here! Just go with it! 

On the weekend, Mr B has promised Ralph that we will go to the shops to buy more ribbons, so we can all be superheroes together. So look out for that impressive scene if you spot the Bulger family walking down the street this Easter. 

In the meantime, at Ralph's request, we will probably be reading Archie and the Bear every night, a story about a little boy who is not wearing a bear-costume (because he IS a bear).

Here is a little flip-through of this beautiful book, created by its UK-based illustrator David Mackintosh. Take a look at the fabulous scale-play, with little Archie sometimes appearing as small as an ant in the deep dark forest, but as big as a bear in bravery, imagination, and friendship. 

https://youtu.be/PYmUeFxg6HY

Archie and the Bear will be officially released next month. Zanni sent this book to my children as a gift, but I was not paid to write about it, nor was there any requirement that I even mention it at all. I am just so seriously in love with this beautiful story that I couldn't help myself.

Ok happy Easter. See you on the other side! 

Holidays at home

Summer holidays at home are for bare feet and late nights. For dining on ice cream instead of vegetables, watching Netflix instead of deadlines, and reading trashy novels instead of weighty text-books.

They are for heatwaves and plummeting rain and, when the rain clears, for a million petals carpeting the footpath like confetti.  

Holidays are for languid afternoons and lazy nonchalance, for baking and making, for staying in pyjamas all day one day and swimming costumes all day the next. For games. New games, old games, games together and games alone, games of action and games of craft, games of imagination and games of giggles. And for at least three complaints of "I'm boooooored," issuing from among mountains of new Christmas toys.

Then, the new year. 

Holidays turn to tidying bedrooms, cleaning out cupboards, making plans, and writing lists. So many lists! To-do lists, shopping lists, lists of recipes to try, lists of creative projects, gratitude lists, mailing lists. And new calendars and fresh new planners, lined notebooks full of promise, and bright new collections of art-paper, ready for rainbows. 

What have you been doing lately? 

Into the woods

Little Scout was nervous at first, stepping gingerly through the underbrush on the way to the trees, holding tightly to my hand, and Ralph's. "I am afraid of the sticks," she said, "afraid that they might hurt me." Once inside the pine-forest, she kept calling Ralph back. "Stay close little man! You might get lost!" Every step further into the forest added another layer of fear. She was positive we would all get lost. That there were monsters. Badgers (thank you, Peter Rabbit). A gruffalo.

And then Ralph found the first pine-cone. It was all broken and rotting on the under-side, so we threw it back, but it was enough. They raced around the clearing where we stood, Scout no longer afraid, leaping over the once-deadly sticks to find the best and most beautiful pine-cones. Ralph lead us further into the forest. "I am the exhibition leader!" he announced proudly. He meant expedition leader. "Ralph is a very good brother," Scout said, and I agreed. "Lead on, Ralph," I said, following him dutifully.

Above our heads and outside of the forest, a great wind was roaring. We saw it in the swaying canopy above us, heard it in the creaks and moans of the trees around us, and had felt it, before we stepped inside the trees, in the slap of dust and hair stinging our cheeks. But in here, everything felt calm. It was our own woody, pine-scented bubble.

We drank tea from enamel mugs, watched a kangaroo hop lazily past us and disappear over a hill. We raced one another in and out of rows of pine-trees, followed winding paths, scrambled up and down and over mossy logs and (unintentionally) through muddy puddles, and altogether had a wonderful time.

Even the mosquitoes that showed up for our picnic lunch couldn't dampen our mood. "It's a mozzie hunt!" the children shouted, slapping themselves wildly, and mostly ineffectually.

Then, "Time to find more pine-cones," declared the expedition leader, but what he was really saying was, "Let the wild rumpus start!" So we packed up our picnic things and scrambled through the forest once more.

Anatomy of a pyjama day

Anticipation

When you are nearly four, anticipation is palpable. Tangible.

It dominates your mealtimes. What will my cake look like? Will all my friends sing Happy Birthday? Can we have hot chocolate?

And your friendships. I am nearly four. Am I older than my other friends? Will my hair be longer than all my friends' hair now? Will my feet be bigger than all my friends'?

Cleaning the house before your party, you don't even mind hiding your toys to make room for the party games. You can put them away now, Mummy, I don't mind. You help your mother decorate the house with the posters and banners and streamers and balloons you chose from Big W; mix up polymer snow-powder; smooth out tiny, handmade, paper snowflakes in your little almost-four hands.

Anticipation permeates your dreams. Quick! I have to get ready for my party! you yell, still fathoms-deep in sleep. (I will come to your party, your brother drowsily replies, before sinking back into his own dreams.)

................................

I didn't want to host yet another party in my house, but Scout begged me to do it. She didn't want to celebrate her birthday anywhere else. It was a lot of work, as parties always are. But in the weeks and days beforehand, as the day grew near and nearer still, I came to understand the joy of anticipation through her eyes. Even the most mundane of tasks: tidying, vacuuming, grocery shopping; became acts of thrilling expectation, and gave her joy before the real joy of the party.

I guess we never stop learning from our children.

Scout says, Ralph says

"'If you knew how great is a mother's love,' Wendy told them triumphantly, 'you would have no fear.'" JM Barrie, Peter Pan

Ralph has taken to calling me "Big Mamma," which is not particularly flattering, but relates adorably to "Little Mamma," his sister.

During an argument... Ralph: I put you in the bin, Scout! Scout: Well, you're not my best friend. Ralph: I DO want to be your best friend! Scout: Then say I am not in the bin. Ralph: I put you OUT of the bin! Scout: Alright, what balloon would you like?

And more about misbehaviour... Me, to Ralph: Can you please be a good boy today? Ralph: No! I will be A. Naughty. Boy! Me: Please? Ralph: NOOOOOOO! Me: Oh dear. I feel sad when you are naughty. Ralph (cuddles me around the neck): Alright, I will be a good boy. Scout: I will be naughty!

Ralph: Mummy? Me: Yes? Ralph: I'm lovely to see you, Mummy.

Scout: Mummy, you are a queen and you will look the same when you are a little old lady.

Me: Scout, thank you for doing such a great job tidying up the play-dough. Scout: You might want to give me something for that.

Lunch time. Sandwiches apparently give the children magic powers, and Ralph is determined to do what he calls "naughty magic"... Me: Quick Scout! Eat some magic sandwiches so you can counter Ralph's magic spells! Scout (takes a big bite of her sandwich): One, two, three... (get it? COUNTer?)

Ralph: This is a lovely autumn day for a chocolate milkshake.

Music teacher is handing out maracas to all the children... Me: What do you say, Ralph? Ralph (brandishing maracas): Let's rock!

Scout hands me a fist full of coins... "This is for you because you never have any money. Now put it in your purse so you don't lose it."

Ralph: Do aeroplanes have bladders for their wee?

Kids have been arguing and yelling at each other all morning... Me: Hey guys, can anyone remember that I told you this was a No Fight Day? (long pause) Ralph: No, it IS a fight day! Scout: Yeah it IS a fight day! Both kids: Fight day! Fight day! Fight day! (united at last)

Scout: Mummy, I want to keep you.

Mother's Day

There are two pairs of tiny, mud-covered wellies in the hallway by our front door. And if you are aged two or three, you will know that that is a sign of a day well spent: muddy wellies suggest explorations, rain-soaked adventures, (Ralph's curls gone wild), and, of course, the time-honoured joy of jumping up and down in muddy puddles.

Yesterday was Mother's Day and, do you know what? Call me Hallmark but I felt the love. It started with both children on our bed in the morning, Ralph asking "Can you let the cat in?" and Scout squeezing me around the neck, saying, "Ahh my Mummy. I love you more than me." You could have stopped the day right there and it would have been complete for me.

We had brunch with a friend at Bebida on Smith Street and, alongside the best eggs I've had in a longggg time, they also managed to give me the best Mother's Day brunch that money could buy, being a really great (grown-up!) atmosphere, without any member of staff skipping a beat that we had brought two small children with us. They were super friendly, super helpful, super cool and the food was super good. This, combined with the fact that both children were preternaturally well-behaved, made it a stress free and thoroughly enjoyable meal. We followed up with a scoop each at Gelato Messina, and the kids didn't even make a mess of their clothes. Because, Mother's Day magic!

As I carried Ralph back along Smith Street, I whispered into his curls, "I love you." "Can you say it louder?" he asked. "I love you!" I announced, in my big voice. "I love you Mummy," said Ralph. "I love you I love you I LOVE YOU!" A lump formed in my throat. (And then he continued, "I love that red car, I love that light, I love that wall." But I will take my wins where I find them).

Scout woke first from her afternoon nap, so she and I went out together to CERES (more jumping up and down in muddy puddles) to buy some plants for our garden, as well as a particularly lovely monstera deliciosa for inside the house. Because apparently, on Mother's Day you actually TURN INTO your mother. I swear I could feel my mother approving of my choice of Mother's Day present, even all the way from Poland, where she and my father are adventuring right now. (I miss my mum! Happy Mother's Day, Mum!) Scout carefully selected a fair-trade Bolga Basket woven out of elephant grass by mothers in Ghana, which will serve as a 'pot' for the monstera in my bedroom.

When we got home, the children and I spent an hour playing "babies." This is a great game to play when you're tired because, as a baby, you get to lie down on the floor and not do particularly much. In this iteration of the game, both Ralph and I were the babies, and Scout was our mother. It was bedtime, and she gave us toys to cuddle in bed. But we were (upon instruction) 'naughty,' and insisted on playing instead of sleeping. If you are a particularly wily mother (ahem), you can learn to work the system of this game. For example, crying "Wah, wah! Mummy this baby can't sleep because she needs a foot massage!"

Let's just say that Scout is a very attentive mummy.

At dinner Mr B and I decanted a lovely bottle of red wine and lit candles in the dining room, with a bad/hilarious/great record from the 1960s on the old Blaupunkt, featuring popular classical pieces from Mozart and Beethoven and other similar composers, set alongside some wonderfully tacky drum beats and guitar 'fillers'.

And that brings us up to my right now (your last night). I am sitting on the couch, watching some renovation show or other on the TV. Both children and Mr B are upstairs, probably snoring. Our cat Ruby is beside me on the couch, purring and also keeping my feet warm. Soon she and I will join everyone else in the family in slumber. Mother's Day 2016, over and out.

ps. Me and my mum, a very long time ago...

Image credit: Sarah Boyle, licensed for unlimited use under Creative Commons