Tell me everything you know / A piece on Parents

It used to mean a lot to me to know how I came to be in this life. Like somehow knowing would imply that I meant more, that being alive was not so random. But random it is, particularly because my parents can't seem to tell me the same story about it. His story is pretty simple; at a hotel (not without serious adoration and respect in the moment mind you). Hers, is more of a beautiful surprise pregnancy with a beautiful surprise future. I suppose both versions are of love, from love - and somehow, I don't think it really matters how. What seems more important is all the stuff post being pushed out with the assistance of self hypnosis & a Waterboys song playing. What matters more than whether my parents saw a future together post dating is how I treat people, how much time I take to simmer sauce to get the flavour just right and if I know how to respectfully write one long text not 6 smalls ones. ___________ Memories When I was younger, being uncertain about the exact truth of the situation made me feel like maybe I wasn't really wanted, and maybe a baby more planned and more considered would be loved more. Well I'm here to tell you, I don't think my mum could have loved me more if I was Tom Waits himself sitting at the end of her bed lulling her into a dream with his song. She loved me more than that, and that's saying a lot if you know my mum. (Just to paint you a picture, I used to print photos of him and sign them with messages on her birthday to put on the fridge...)

When I think about the parenting I have received, I have these vivid moments in time woven together that I can play like a movie. Mum and I making house floor plans with the grass clippings, Her and her friend sitting on the balcony having a glass of wine on a Sunday afternoon with our usual pan of roasted veggies bubbling away. I remember my Poppy and I watching Art Attack after school with milk and smiths crisps ready for me. I remember Dad and I making Milo with the Milo to milk ratio almost laughably unbalanced (in all the right ways) and being his mini roadie when he played gigs.

I can see with complete clarity Mum and I driving in our red holden commodore station wagon, and her leaving op shop wins on my bed after school. When I would go to Dads, Mum would surprise me by changing all the furniture in my room around, and we'd spend week day evenings with our strict roles of me never having to do the dishes if she never had to fold any washing. A lot of it was pretty blissful. And other parts, less so. These snapshots that replay when I cast back into the memory pool, fill me up with technology free happiness. Some of them also fill me up with great sadness and lack of understanding; which I'm sure will only become less foggy to me once I parent a child myself.

I'll just leave this here....

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Perceptions of 'Parent' and some of the ones I have On one side of the genetic pool that created this freckly, curvy, creative situation is el Pappa. Dad and I have a different kind of love. Not bad, just different - as we do with all our parental figures. Although we look the same, make the same expressions in photos and both sit in the shower instead of stand, Dad and I's energy and how I reacted to and processed 'us' resulted in me not being my happiest self at times growing up.

Then Jenny Slate came to me on an instagram scroll, like an mirage on a trek through the desert. 'As the imagine of myself becomes sharper in my brain and more precious, I feel less afraid someone else will erase me by denying me love'. And it's with this quote, the words for this blog came pouring out... I've had a strange relationship to this notion of 'parenthood' my whole life, mainly because Dad and I come in and out of flow together. Sometimes so similar when we're moving our hands the same or getting frustrated with people not changing lanes fast enough. And sometimes so far apart I forget that it took two to tango... My inherent need to be loved and adored by him (as I think we all want our parents to do) has taken my heart on many a bumpy ride. We've never lived together and have gone months and months at a time without talking. Just figuring ourselves out everyday. But I will say this, being half him means I have rhythm, comedic timing, capacity for critical thinking, thick luscious hair, extreme emotional sensitivity, empathy and sharp whit. That friends my is entirely the vibe and I'm very glad he's the one I exist from.

My step dad and I are so wildly different, I would say he thinks the opposite of fire is no fire and me, thinking the opposite of fire is water. Meaning, he questions things with the vision of a vastly better world, because let's face it it hasn't been going so great for us thus far. And I'm pro giving everything a chance (sometimes to my detriment). He's shown up for me on days when I couldn't show up for myself and that's forged for us, a very special kind of relationship.

My mum raised me like her ideal best friend and as a result we both love Van Morrison, both have an unrelenting hatred for tangled coat hangers and a kind of deep sacred Mother Nature, Past Life like connection even when we're not talking every day. Mum and I are just as we are, two redheads riding the wave of womanhood (except she's in her silvery late 50's and I have dads brown hair - so we're both faking being redheads at this point).

My step mum and I have had complicated times where I feel like the idea of one another in the others mind is not the truest version of ourselves. She is fierce, vibrant, powerful and driven and is an advocate for us all to just totally blossom in our individuality. These days, I feel much more comfortable being myself around her and I'm looking forward to what that relationship looks like in the future.

Then, there's the parenting I got from my parents parents, my parents siblings, my parents best friends, my friends parents, teachers and mentors. It's like the whole world is just raising eachother until we decide we want to be parents ourselves (to people or pets or projects or house plants.)

At this point I had typed the word parent so many times I wanted to find out the actual definition: Parenting or child rearing promotes and supports the physical, emotional, social, and intellectual development of a child from infancy to adulthood. Parenting refers to the intricacies of raising a child and not exclusively for a biological relationship. Indeed.

----------------- So what is it about these people that makes us want to feel loved by them? I think they become our 'touch trees' in a sense. They're the home base we can come back to, to judge whether we have strayed too far from the path. Am I making good choices? Am I exceeding the vision you had for my life? Am I a depiction of the values you instilled in me? And for some people, it's more a question of, Am I doing better than you ever imagined despite you? But that's the thing about parents, we're told that how they feel about us is supposed to be unconditional. They're supposed to love us no matter what we do or choose or say. But I honestly just don't know if I agree with that... Adore in our uniqueness? Yes. Respect? Yes. Agree with? No. Understand? No. For me, I want to be loved by my parents because I want them to be able to say that who they're leaving the world with, will leave it better - and so forth down the line. Perhaps we should be turning the question from 'what should they be providing me with?' and ask instead 'tell me everything you know.' ----------------- What happens when our parents experience ill-health? I hadn't comprehended before the Jenny Slate quote, that at a certain age you do begin to move further away from your parents telling you ways to be. Ways to operate, ways not to make the errors they made, ways to have a better human experience; and you begin to move closer into self-focus. Like you're adjusting your lens to bring yourself sharper into view through your own camera - where you can rely more closely on the ways you want to be, in the ways you want to be them, making the errors you need to make. So when the people you stopped relying on to tell you who you are (all the while for the lucky ones, being right there just incase) have health issues, it shocks you into a relapse. It certainly did for me recently. I started to think about all the things I still hadn't found out from them. I wanted to drive straight there and say 'tell me, tell me everything you know.' I wanted to know not only what they thought of the daily ceremony of life, but also what they thought of me. Have I made them proud so far, what pot-holes should I avoid? How strange, to be practicing what felt like radical independence, fostering an almost friendship like relationship with 'all' of my parents, to wanting to go to them and be held. To ask them for their wisdom and to tell of their pain. Wanting to be a child again where they were invincible and in no version of an imagined future would they ever be unwell.

This quote from Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg certainly hit home for me and what I'd like to do with my parents over the while. ''Though death is howling at our backs, and life is roaring at our face, we can simply begin to write what we have to say.''

---------- Moving Forward, Writing What We Have to Say Instead of asking my parents what they have to say, I first asked what I wanted to hear. Philosophically, I think reflecting on the knowledge that has been collected through our ancestors and chosen family, then passed on to us, is a way to recognise the layers upon layers that create who we are. When we consider the ways in which these stories are told to us, and how they're cut up, juiced, consumed down the line we learn how 'story' can really become hope in times of darkness. Despite many people in my family (including me) not always letting the truth get in the way of a good story, I still feel that the core of what they are saying washes out all the extra and teaches me what it needs to. When I need a good story I go to my Nana and ask her about the time she was given a Valentine's card from a secret admirer working at Myer. I ask my Dad to tell me about his relationship with his Grandmother Isabelle, or Mum to tell me about the time she was living in Sydney in the 80's wearing a TuTu to work. I would ideally like to hear that life isn't just this, with a job and a kind of constant unknowing and wanting of more depth. More depth of knowledge, more depth of love, more depth of understanding. Deeper levels of deeper levels of deeper levels. But it probably is, and maybe that's what makes it more interesting; the incessant unknown. I'd really like to know if you 'know' when you meet your person. If I need to save more for retirement than I think I do. What success feels like to them. If it's worth me buying an air fryer. If a version of 'God' has ever shown up for them, and how important a sense of spirituality is for them. Their favourite recipe. What the five best decisions of their life have been so far. I'm sure if I asked Mum her numero uno it would be: Love Many. Trust Few & Always Paddle in your Own Canoe. What would you tell your offspring if they asked you? ______ Closing

In the coming months, much to one particular parents dismay I'm sure, I'll be asking them to tell me everything they know. What I hope, is that I can capture some of their story, its peaks and its deep craters so as to not only have a better understanding of who I've come from, but to know more about what parts of their recollections and experiences I'd like to take forward. What parts of their life can spill over into the future generations, lighting their way. (And, they would laugh here, but what parts to absolutely and unequivocally avoid.) Thanks for sitting with me for ten minutes with these reflections on parents. I think it's clear we're all just walking each other home. With Love, and the promise of more soon. M.

Daily Ceremony is grateful to live and work on Yuin land that holds the stories of the Dreamtime. We pay our respects and honour the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Elders past, present & emerging and acknowledge the stories, traditions and living cultures of our First Nations People

Ceremony [ ser-uh-moh-nee ] A unified ritualistic event with a purpose, usually consisting of a number of artistic components, performed on a special occasion. Aka, life.