I made Ming scrambled eggs, bacon and tomatoes last night and he said the eggs were really different and fantastic! I said it was because they started out poached but ended up scrambling themselves.
I didn’t tell him I had chucked a massive goose egg into the mix.
Ah, control!
It is the beginning of my third day of being Godzilla since my tranformation on Sunday night and I am gaining a whole new perspective from my great height. One of the interesting things I’ve realized is that I have never been the boss here. It has been an old-fashioned sort of marriage with Anthony making all of the decisions to do with the house, garden, farm etc. Mostly this was fine with me and I deferred to him because (a) he was an older man; (b) I married into an already established home; and (c) I didn’t mind or care about the garden and house decisions.
Don’t get me wrong. Ants was never bossy or overbearing; it’s just that as a retired dairy farmer, he naturally took responsibility for all the home stuff and I went out to work and pursued my academic career. But now, when I look back, I see that I did not make any of the decisions. He did. For example, I couldn’t simply ring up and get someone to help us repair a pump or a fence or an electrical fault. This was always Anthony’s territory. Occasionally this would drive me mad and we would argue, but not often. Usually I would just give up and leave it to him.
On the other hand, we did make some decisions together – a new mirror, carpet, a car, new tiles for the kitchen, Christmas presents for Ming, and we had enormous fun doing so, but the final word was always Anthony’s. He was the boss. I was under the thumb, but the thing is, you see, I didn’t mind and anyway I was preoccupied with my teaching job and my writing.
As his health began to deteriorate dramatically (nearly 5 years ago), I wanted to buy a ride-on lawnmower to make it easier but he wouldn’t let me and that was that. I wanted to get reticulation but he wouldn’t let me and that was that. Many of my female friends were amazed at my lack of assertiveness and autonomy; after all Anthony was never dictatorial or bullying or nasty – it’s just that the power was his from the outset I guess and so I have never felt any sense of ownership in terms of this home that I love, this farm that I love. In fact all of my toiletries are still in a travel bag under the sink in the bathroom; I have never unpacked them!
Blip ahead to now (8 months since Ants went into the nursing lodge and 7 months since Ming’s scoliosis operation), the dynamics shifted subteley and I found myself under someone else’s thumb – Ming’s. Initially, I was so proud of him for taking on this role of ‘man of the house’, and he took the reins of control with alacrity. But several weeks ago, this arrangement began to fall apart – his bossiness exhausted me, and the bossier he became the more defeated I became. To top it off, my sorrow about Anthony kept clashing with Ming’s anger about Anthony and we began to avoid each other.
Of course there is a lot more to this but on Sunday it all came to a head and I finally realized I was actually being bullied, and I drew the line and took back a control that I never had in the first place. For a kid who is unfamiliar with the word ‘No’ this has been an interesting transition, so we are both experiencing brand new roles and it is rather wonderful! I love being the boss and today I have a lawnmowing man and his son out here getting the place back into shape and teaching Ming how to do stuff and I orchestrated it, I made the decision – me!
Even Godfrey, the Godzilla of ganderdom, has a new respect for me. Yeeha!
It was mid-semester break at the local university where I worked so I took Ming in with me. He was nearly four. I’d only done this once before and it’d been a disaster because there was nothing for him to do except run up and down the hallway, vrooming, which wasn’t really appropriate at exam time.
This time I had a drawer full of paper, textas, finger puppets, matchbox cars and chocolate frogs ready, and for awhile this worked really well. I closed my office door and started preparing for the following semester while Ming played and drew pictures happily on the floor.
Inevitably, Ming got bored, so finally I opened my office door and told him he could go up and down the hallway quietly. He raced out.
After a few minutes I realised it was just a bit too quiet and, worried he’d wandered outside, I darted into the hallway just in time to see him dragging a chair from one of empty lecture rooms into the hallway and across to another lecture room. This was a big job for a little guy and I retreated to my doorway and watched, unnoticed, while, grunting with exertion, he finally propped the chair up against the closed door.
I knew there was some sort of community seminar going on in that room and earlier I’d bumped into the woman conducting it and said a quick hello. She’d seen Ming and crouched down at his eye-level and ruffled his hair, saying, “You’re a handsome devil aren’t you!” But it wasn’t until I saw him clambering onto the chair to look through the small window into the room where she was giving some sort of presentation that I realised how much impact she’d had on him.
I tip-toed up behind him to watch this woman through Ming’s ‘little-boy’ eyes. She was certainly beautiful; she was young, slim, olive-skinned and her black hair fell to her waist. Ming was so transfixed that he had no idea I was there until she suddenly noticed us peering in. She was so startled that I whisked Ming off the chair and back into my office, embarrassed.
But, much to my surprise, he ran straight back and picked up the chair, which had fallen over, and clambered onto it again to have another look. I quietly left him to it.
A few minutes later, I heard voices in the hallway, indicating that the seminar had finished. Ming toddled back into my office, an ecstatic smile on his face.
“Come an’ look, Mummy,” he said, pulling me away from my desk and into the hallway. The woman was walking away but, for some reason, she turned back and saw us watching her. She waved, and Ming waved back. Then she was gone. He sighed.
“That’s a bootiful womin, isint it, Mummy,” he said, looking up at me, his eyes full of light. I was flabbergasted. Was he in love?
It took weeks to wear off!
…..
Now that Ming is 18 he has experienced a few more crushes and been crushed by them as we all are at that age. It is strange to think that I was, at his age, falling in love with Anthony. I wonder who Ming will end up forming a relationship with and I hope she will be kind to him like the woman in the story above. If she isn’t, I will bop her!
Just for fun, I sent my kissing peafowl photo to Robyn at http://throughthehealinglens.com/ to see if she could improve it. And look what she’s done – amazing difference!
Here is the ‘before’:
And here is the ‘after’ – Robyn’s version:
I love it! Thank you, Robyn.
This Anthonyless house has become a place of procrastination and rage and lassitude. The garden is overgrown, the house needs a sweep, the washing keeps getting rained on, and the meals don’t happen.
This Anthonyless house has lost its routine because he is no longer living here and motivating us to keep up. In very different ways, Ming and I are both in that limboland of depressed energy – he rages and I cry and, no matter how many times we climb up into the sunlight, we keep falling back down into the pit again.
Today, I was going to cook Ming a breakfast of bacon, eggs and tomatoes but, instead, I slept in.
Today, Ming was going to mow the lawns but, instead, he is playing his guitar and watching a movie in his room.
Today, I was going to visit Anthony in the nursing lodge at 11am but I’m not going in until 4pm now because …
EPIPHANY!
If I go in at 4pm with a bottle of red wine, I can emulate what we used to do every afternoon at 5pm at home; we would routinely have a pre-dinner drink. Yes! It has to be 4pm because in the nursing lodge dinner is at 5pm; there is a routine! So, if Ants and I have a drink together and a few olives at 4pm maybe he won’t get this confusion thing later in the evening after I’ve gone home. I could make this a regular routine thing that we both could look forward to!
Perhaps, if this is a regular routine, things will improve emotionally for all three of us? I don’t know. Some of my other haphazard ideas have gone to the wall – showing him my blog didn’t work, wheelchair-taxi rides home didn’t work, taking paperwork in to do with him didn’t work etc. etc.
It wouldn’t have to be every day. I haven’t been able to get in every day anyway, so it could be every second day. I could work this around picking up Ming from music school and his cow-milking schedule somehow. Yes!
I have to give the credit for this routine epiphany to Malay, our biggest and most regular cockadoodledooer! He says that routine is vitally important in terms of organizing the day.
Malay: I crow at 4am and 4pm on the dot. It keeps me sane.
Me: Okay, so how do you know what the time is?
Malay: Julie, I am a rooster!
Me: Oh sorry.
Malay: When you go in this afternoon, I will be crowing for you and Anthony. After all, you both raised me from a chick.
Me: Thanks, Malay.
This Anthonyless house is full to the brim with Anthony – roll on 4pm!
This is Woodroffe, navel-gazing.
This is Woodroffe reminding me, sternly, that geese and ganders do not have navels and that, even if they did, they wouldn’t waste time gazing at them.
Bubble: My feelings are a bit hurt, Julie.
Me: Why, Bubble?
Bubble: Well, Ming’s friend said I looked like a vulture.
Me: Oh Bubble, don’t worry about that. You don’t look anything like a vulture; you look like a turkey.
Bubble: Are you sure, Julie?
Me: Of course I am, Bubble. You are much too kind to be a vulture.
Bubble: Thanks, Julie. That’s a great relief because I am not a vulture.
With my cousin from Sydney the other day. She and her beautiful daughter have now gone back home.
Last night I had one of my adventure nightmares. We were all in a big ship – Ants, Ming and me – on the way from London to Paris.
Inside my dream I recognized the fact that (a) we don’t live in London and (b) Paris is too far away.
We all boarded the ship – Ants, Ming and me – but then I remembered that I had forgotten Anthony’s pills and my wallet, so I asked the ship’s captain to wait a minute and he said yes.
But when I got back to the dock the ship had gone; it was way out in the ocean and I stood on the edge of the dark water, helpless and frantic, with Anthony’s pills in my hands and a hamburger for Mingy.
I was too late and they were gone.
jmgoyder 