A Luce Affiliation

I'm in the dying days of my maternity leave and I can already feel myself being swept up in work again. Before I had Nora, everybody wanted to tell me how *hard* it would be.  But I think working as an emergency doctor is unusually good preparation for caring for a baby.  It's unpredictable, thankless and there's no end in sight.   Of course there are good bits too. So I want to buck the trend and write about these. You can just fill in the blanks about all the boring bits like changing nappies and shush-patting and breast pumps.  1.  No-plastic fantastic I developed an obsession with buying groceries sans packaging.  Handily, there's a Friends of the Earth co-op at the end of my street that sells all sort of things by weight.  I just take my own containers up there and buy oats, rice, tea, dishwashing liquid, flour, spices....It is extremely satisfying.  Admittedly I got some dirty looks when I took my shopping bag full of disposable nappies in, but at le

In April I reached Peak Maternity Leave. Nora slept at times and on Wednesday evenings I rode up the Johnston street hill to Fitzroy to do painting classes. I have no natural aptitude for visual arts.  In high school I disliked it so much I once volunteered to clean the studio sinks instead of painting.  I have since learnt to enjoy doing things I am bad at. The painting classes were terribly fun.  There was cheese, cake and apple cordial.  Actually there was wine too but I'm not much of a drinker these days.  The teacher was fabulous, he took us step by step through painting tonally (light and dark!) using colours (warm and cool!) and glazing (painting one colour over another colour!). This all culminated in my fairly rudimentary painting of an apple: My favourite part of the painting class was learning the artists' idiom 'to pull it out of the fire': to rescue a painting from a seemingly catastrophic error. I love learning new idioms.  There are lots of

Just returned from a quick 50 minute trip to the Fitzroy pool. Sunday afternoon, 34 degrees, summer sounds DJs playing. Pool is heaving with people. Water runs slick over my sunscreened arms. Boy crosses underneath me at the deep end, skimming the bottom of the pool.

Baby Nora was born 1 month ago.  She is our smallest, softest team member. It's been a nice slow time of year to be settling in to life with baby.  It's always quiet in Collingwood around new year anyway.  The cafes are closed, there's not much traffic on the roads and no one is rushing in the heat.  In the first few weeks I would go for a late afternoon walk around the streets.  I walked slower than I've ever walked.  And I felt so adventurous being outside in the world.  I would amble very slowly around the block, sometimes down Gold street or just along Johnston street.  Each afternoon I would try to return with a community update for Jason.  Important community updates included: an enormous branch fell off the gum tree in the park opposite our house.   A branch as big as a tree! the old men's club around the corner of our house started advertising a small dinner menu.  And the Sonsa man was there so it must be a Turkish club.  He gave me a friendly wave.

2015 was a bit of a strange year of reading for me. Fewer novels and more non-fiction.  Overall I read more than I thought I had. I'll begin with my top 5: Beloved- Toni Morrison Brother of the More Famous Jack- Barbara Trapido The Luminaries- Eleanor Catton The Natural Way of Things- Charlotte Wood Slouching towards Bethlehem- Joan Didion Books I read in 2015: Feminism Unfinished- Dorothy Sue Cobble, Linda Gordon, Astrid Henry As I Lay Dying- William Faulkner Big Magic- Elizabeth Gilbert The White Album- Joan Didion The Wife Drought- Annabel Crabbe M Train- Patti Smith The Shipping News- Annie Proulx The Thorn Birds- Colleen McCullough Beloved- Toni Morrison The Dressmaker- Rosalie Ham Green Valentine- Lili Wilkinson Birth Skills- Juju Sundin Feminism is for Everybody- bell hooks How to Be a Woman- Caitlin Moran My Brilliant Friend- Elena Ferrante The Intern- Gabrielle Tozer H is for Hawk- Helen McDonald Why so Slow? The Advancement of Women- Virginia V