Capture the colour

Have you heard of the Capture the Colour competition? You post your travel pics in blue, green, yellow white and red, to potentially win prizes. I love the theme of this competition, and the concept of storytelling that is to go along with the photos. So while my photographs are nothing special visually, I thought that just for fun, I'd use this idea to take myself (and you) on a little armchair journey through some old memories.

Blue Steel blue water, blue sky and a blue warship, all reflected in the cool blue glass facades of Manhattan skyscrapers...

In 2009, two Australian warships HMA Sydney and HMA Ballarat sailed into New York as part of the centenary celebration of the Great White Fleet. I was lucky enough to be one of four Aussie journalists taken out by the US Coastguard to greet the frigates. I will never forget the early morning salt-slap of water against my face as we headed out to the mouth of the Hudson River; nor the surge of patriotic pride that took me completely by surprise as Sydney churned into view, white-clad officers lining her deck, and the strains of a band playing "Down Under" bouncing over the waves.

Green On a trek through the Sacred Valley in Peru, we came across this group of school children playing football. The players and the field appeared seemingly out of nowhere as we emerged from dense forest. What with the green field, the green mountains and the thick forest, it was as though these boys were playing inside a green globe, above, below and around.

Yellow I snapped this little fellow with his yellow truck, yellow striped mat and almost-yellow hair at the Lee Street fete in Melbourne, Australia, earlier this year.

It was a poignant day for me. I was six months pregnant with my first baby, and Mr B and I had recently moved to Melbourne, the fourth state we'd lived in in less than a year and the fifth interstate move for me since I'd left New York only two years earlier. Finally we were settled, creating a home. And since the Lee Street school was where our little one would eventually go, we decided to visit to the fete. I think it was on this day that I really started to get clucky, and the reality of our baby-to-be sank in.

White The white sails of this yacht, and the white sea-foam created by our own yacht, stood out in wonderful contrast to sea, land and sky during a sunset cruise in Newport, Rhode Island (USA).

I had taken two weeks away from steamy August in New York and stayed in a B&B that was a 300 year-old rum runner's house overlooking Narragansett Bay. In between harbour cruises, I spent a lot of time visiting remote graveyards in the wilderness, researching the bizarre stories of vampires that plagued this corner of America as recently as 100 years ago.

Red A sea of red terracotta rooftops, curving away into the distance in the Old Town part of Nice, France.

This was taken during our family holidays last year. Everyone else had gone down to the beach, but I wanted some time out so I climbed alone up stone steps cut into a cliff, to a kind of belvedere lookout from what was once, so I read, a Celtic castle ruin. I remember the sensation that you could almost reach out your hand and touch the roof tiles, although they were actually very far away. I didn't know it at the time but I carried my baby with me on this climb, a tiny speck of a promise only a day or two old.

Part of the Capture the Colour initiative involves tagging five other bloggers who you think might want to take part. Finding five fabulous photographically-talented bloggers with a penchant for travel was easy. LIMITING the list to five was a lot tougher! Here they are:

Melissa of Press Play Brandi of Not Your Average Ordinary Deb of Bright and Precious Katherine of Through My Looking Glass Kate of Our Little Sins

Ladies, will you join me?

Feels like

What does it feel like being a mother? Being Madeleine's mother is a whole new kind of love, something I couldn't ever have imagined, a love so powerful that it threatens to burst out of me at any moment, as though flesh and bones are not enough to contain it. Also, it feels a bit like this. Especially the squeeze part in the middle. [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vw4KVoEVcr0]

Holiday reading

I received this email recently from a woman who came across my novella Airmail in an East Berlin youth hostel. It just made my heart sing. "I am staying at a youth hostel in East Berlin and stumbled across a copy of your book. I am a forty year-old woman traveling with my son, and readily identified with Mr Solomon's bemusement when he first enters the hostel (it was my first time staying at a hostel!)...

"Being forty this year was hard for me and I too am traveling and gathering more marbles. It's not so much that I haven't lived an adventuresome life, it's just that suddenly your life seems so much shorter while the list of things you want to do grows bigger, and you realize that you have spent the last 10 years of your life raising kids and working. (could this be what a mid-life crisis is all about......duh)

"It's amazing how at certain critical points in your life the right book or the right experience occurs. Your book is part of that for me. Today I walked past some graffiti on the side of a cafe - 'Life is not over yet' it read."

Wasn't that nice of this woman to write and tell me? I don't think there's anything that could make me happier as an author than to learn that my book was "the right book" in someone's life. Oh so happy.

Positive thinking

Sometimes you just need a little positive energy in your life. A little hope, a glimpse of that light at the end of the tunnel. Wouldn't you agree? I can't thank you enough for all your kindness and thoughts and prayers on this post. With all my heart I want to tell you how much reading your words in the comments has helped our family stay hopeful and think positive.

One day when Madeleine is older I will show her your comments so she can know that she was thought of and loved by friends and strangers alike throughout the world at a time when she (and her mama) truly needed it.

Underneath and overhead

You have never been so afraid. Your daughter looks up at you from the crook in your right arm, makes a kissy face and then a smile and gurgles happily, pink and plump and blue-eyed. She is the picture of health. And though you try to fight them back, you feel the hot tears spill over your cheeks. They fall onto her upturned face and you wipe her dry, then tenderly stroke her soft hair.

You try to take it all in as the doctor talks on about the hole in her heart, the one that is half a centimetre wide, that is pumping blood into her lungs that shouldn’t be there. Your precious baby girl. She is only 17 days old, how can you protect her?

“Probable,” he says. Probable is the word he chooses to describe the likelihood that your tiny baby will need to undergo open-heart surgery in six to eight weeks. There is a moment in which you think you are going to be sick but instead you bring up a sob that is as hard as stone, and drop more silent tears onto your daughter's little face. “Although she might surprise us,” the doctor adds.

When you get home she cries and cries, over-tired and overwrought, so you swallow your own tears to try and comfort hers. Eventually, her dad sings her to sleep. You tip-toe into the room and look over her as she slumbers, her face relaxed and lovely, her dreams trouble-free.

But everything has changed. The joy you felt this morning from watching her sleep is gone. Now you know that underneath that peaceful face, those eyelashes that softly quiver, is her traitor’s heart, a heart that even now is pumping blood where it shouldn’t go, pulling your daughter into danger.

You wonder how you can ever be normal for her, in the days and weeks to follow, while there is nothing to do but watch and wait. I wrote the piece above yesterday after returning home from the hospital with Madeleine's diagnosis ("ventricular septal defect" is the official term), as a way to express the grief that overwhelmed me.

I wrote it in the second person because I just couldn't stand any closer to the fear. I didn't call my friends or tell a soul, because I couldn't (and still can't) talk about it. So my words on here will have to do instead.

But I want to end this post on a more positive note, with the double rainbow that stretched overhead like protective arms around our family when we took a walk together on the weekend.

There is good reason for us to have hope, among the fear. We discovered the defect in time, thanks to the vigilance of one of the midwives at our maternity hospital who picked up an anomaly the very night our baby was born. We have one of the best health systems in the world, and Madeleine's care will be limitless and free, thanks to our tax dollars at work. All three cardiac surgeons at the children's hospital are world class, and each performs this operation on babies several times a week. And after her operation, Madeleine will be well. No suffering. No more danger.

Yesterday I let grief take me. Just for one day. Now I will be positive and full of that hope, because that is what my little girl needs.

While we watch for symptoms to appear and wait for the operation she will most likely have to have, I will dedicate my hours to giving her love, making her laugh, ensuring she feels safe, and dreaming about her future.

Peonies

You could be forgiven, if you spend any amount of time at all reading blogs, for sometimes feeling the need to express the odd bout of what I like to call “peony fatigue.” Peonies are undoubtedly favourites of bloggers at every corner of the Internet, and these lovely flowers can show up in almost every conceivable iteration. This is especially so at the moment, as the northern hemisphere slides happily into early summer (that's peony season, folks). Blogger + peony = somewhat of a cliché, it is true. But if that is the case then I guess I’m a cliché*, too, because I adore peonies. Links (peonies on Etsy): 1-photographic print 2-letterpress stationery 3-terrarium necklace 4-granny squares 5-oriental print 6-cupcake toppers 7-white peony root 8-bubble bath

I love how gloriously big and fulsome and womanly peonies are. They are delicate but not demure. Feminine but not frail. They are the Rubenesque ladies of the floral world. I love the heady fragrance they carry. And I love that when peonies are pink, they are wholly and unashamedly pink.

Last week I spent 11 hours on a hospital bed, toiling in a labour of love to bring my beautiful daughter Madeleine into the world. Around mid-morning a nurse came in, her head and torso hidden beneath a floral bouquet, overflowing with roses and lilies and an abundance of buds and half-opened peonies. They had been sent by Mr B’s team at work, assuming our baby was already born. The nurse put them on a table directly in front of me, and I focused on those flowers as each new contraction tightened.

Later that night, after I was wheeled into the ward and lay in a fresh bed with my child in my arms, overcome with exhaustion and love and wonder and shock and pain and awe, they carried the flowers into my room, too.

At 4am when I woke to feed my child, I could smell the blooms.

And at 7am when they brought in my breakfast and opened the curtains to the cold Melbourne morning as my little girl curled warm and drowsily on my chest, I saw the peonies had opened. Another birth. They were magnificent.

Mr B came in not long after and bent to sniff them. “What did you say these are called again?”

“Peonies,” I told him.

“What? Penises?!?”

“Peonies!” Yeesh.

Once the name had been clarified, we agreed that they were beautiful beyond any flower. “For the rest of her life, peonies will be Madeleine’s flower,” we said.

Madeleine and I left the hospital to come home on a windy morning four days later. The last of the yellow oak leaves whirled in gusts along the tramlines and pathways, and winter clouds scuttled across the sky in an ever-moving patchwork of sunshine and shade. I sat in the back seat with Madeleine, but I could see Mr B’s face in the rear-vision mirror. His smile was as wide as mine.

The front gate creaked as we opened it onto the herb garden that fronted our little house, and Mr B reached into the letterbox to check it as we passed through. Inside was a postcard from my new friend Kate, who I had met at a blogging conference a couple of months back, welcoming Madeleine into our family. Kate is sending out 100 postcards in 100 different Pantone colours. Guess which colour she happened to pick to send to us? *I read once that a cliché only becomes a cliché because it is the best way of expressing something. There could be something in that, don’t you think?

And one more thing: THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart for your sweet comments and wishes on this post. I feel truly blessed to have so many friends met and unmet, near and far.

Meet Miss Madeleine

My baby girl. She has a head of dark hair, eyes the colour of a storm at sea, and a bottom lip to die for (and kiss). We are both recovering in luxury, well cared for by her proud dad and big sister, both of whom were magnificent during labour and delivery.

I look forward to bringing you tales of Madeleine's adventures very soon.

The thing about Emily Rose

Emily Rose is my stepdaughter, although none of us like to use that term since it seems so cold, and doesn’t even come close to conveying the sense of family that we have. Next month, she will be 14. Emily Rose is beautiful, intelligent, complex, passionate, affectionate and deeply loyal. She drives me crazy. Crazy with a love for her that makes me feel so proud, so possessive, so fiercely protective of her that I am churned up in a constant internal battle of emotions versus reality ("I cannot be her mother. I should not be her mother. She already has a good mother. But, dammit, I feel like her mother").

Are you a step mother or step father? Do you know this beautiful, terrible, unquenchable conflict?

Emily Rose is wonderfully creative, and she and I share a love for many projects, like photography, film, writing, cooking and craft. We also share similar tastes in movies, television and some books, something that I like to think makes Emily Rose particularly mature, rather than me immature. Disagree if you dare. We drive Mr B crazy on road trips, telling and retelling our favourite moments from Flight of the Conchords, Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Harry Potter movies, comparing new music we've discovered, and sharing where we’re up to in the latest Frankie mag or The Hunger Games.

But Emily Rose is also a teenaged girl, which means she comes with other attributes. She has strong opinions on everything and isn't afraid to share them. She is incredibly messy, unceasingly hungry, tireless when it comes to shopping for clothes, has about a zillion friends, and is obsessed with taking photographs of herself and said zillion friends.

You can’t predict Emily Rose. From her father she has inherited a palpable charisma, an entertainer’s love of humour and performance, a head of stunning curls, and a furnace-like temper that’s as quick to flare up as it is to subside.

Sometimes I find it hard to navigate these extremes, both in Emily Rose and in Mr B. I’m a slow burner. Slower to rise in temper but, I am ashamed to admit, a lot slower than either of them to apologise or forgive. It takes me a lot longer to understand my own emotions, let alone anyone else’s, and the ‘thinking time’ I require in the interim teeters dangerously close to the edge of sulks (and has been known to tumble over at times).

Anyway, the thing about Emily Rose is this:

She is to blame for the splints on my hands that make it so difficult for me to type this post. For the fact that I am sitting in a rocking chair with one leg elevated and a thigh under an ice pack to ease the searing pain. She is the reason that I cast a shadow roughly the size of a garden shed, and have to pee just about every half hour.

You see, I never wanted children of my own. I liked children, I just didn’t think I could give a child the life it deserved. And I lived such a rich and wonderful life, full of love and travel and adventure, that while I knew I would miss out on one experience by not having a child of my own, I still had so much for which to be thankful.

Emily Rose changed all that. Through her I had a taste, just a little taste, of what it would be like to be loved by someone for whom you would lay down your life. Because at the same time that I was discovering that I loved Emily Rose more than I ever believed I could love anyone, she gave me her love, too.

From the day I met her, in London when she was just nine years old and her beautiful sister Meg was 14, Emily Rose welcomed me into her family. In time, that welcome turned to friendship, and then love. And the sweetness she showed me, her affection, her acceptance, completely changed my outlook on parenthood.

So when my little Baby B enters the world, she can thank Emily Rose not only for being the best big sister a baby girl could desire, but also for her very existence. Because Baby B is as much a product of my love for Emily Rose as she is of my love for Mr B.

Sisters + Paris

Dear Lennon and Maisy, how have I not seen/heard you before? I am in love![youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_aJHJdCHAo] And...

What would you do if you’d never been to Paris before and you had one day, just one, precious day, to see as much of this magical city as you could? Where would you go? What would you see?

That's the content of my post on the English Muse today, here.

Sunday night sweetness

What to do on a cold Sunday night in with two teenaged girls to entertain and nothing good on TV? Host a cupcake decorating competition, of course. I mixed up a batch of my favourite vanilla cupcakes and plain buttercream icing, using an adaptation from the Magnolia Bakery (NYC) recipe that I love so much. Mr B went all out at the supermarket, buying up natural food colouring, sprinkles, edible sparkles and tubes of coloured piping.

The girls were incredibly creative with their designs. There was a blue-sky rainbow scene, a glowing eye, yin and yang, and even a scooped out bowl of pasta with candy spaghetti bolognese (a tribute to the delicious spag bol we'd eaten earlier for dinner, courtesy of Deb from Bright and Precious). We were very impressed, and Mr B sure had a tough time judging the winner.

It was just lovely to sit in the other room and listen them quietly chatting with one another as they mixed up colours and textures and patterns. It's so nice that, despite being in Years 8 and 9 respectively, they still take so much pleasure in these types of activities. (And I confess we all took pleasure in eating them, later, too.)