stanselen~ (to sparkle + & spark)

I love this photo, ten months pregnant and starting to labour, everything ready for my second baby, the birthing pool waiting for us at home, dolphin music and buddhist cds ready to go,  paintings of the great moment already painted and lotus flowers blossoming firmly in my imagination. I´m not kidding.

I´ve not really written about my babies births on here  much, except things never once went the way I´d planned… I really enjoyed labour, practiced all the squats (I´m quite amazing at squatting) but none of them got the drift or saw the flashing ¨exit here¨ sign. I didnt even need any drugs up until point of operation cutting tummy open with the last two,  enjoying the rushes and surges of intensity that only a labouring woman knows.

But I´ve never actually managed to push one out.

I know this is really fucking self indulgent to complain about,  how whingey and white and middle class. But it is something that really guts me at times.

Why I haven´t dilated past 5cm or why they didn´t move down past my hips and into position for birth will never make sense to me, I´ve had contractions for days and it hasn´t made any difference or progress.  And, yes I´m saying this so you understand I´ve had 3 caesarean births but itś not what I wanted.

Itś not from lack of trying either,  but because either of baby being too large (possibly), not in the correct position or baby being ¨rushed¨, my words, by hospital staff (for my first birth, when they basically drugged me, tied me down and forced my consent to operate because we were stressed… it was alot like an institutionalised rape). Or maybe, maybe I just didnt try for long enough, maybe my body is just dysfunctional, maybe I´m not thinking the right things, maybe my partner was crap, maybe I´m just a big wimp who can´t handle a normal labour, maybe if I have another baby it would be a perfect birth next time.

But the oddś are against me, a woman with a history of 3 caesarean´s is classified insane for wanting to attempt a natural labour and birth even within a hospital and a mid-wife would be hounded to hell if she supported a woman wanting to do this.

I love my midwives for supporting my choice to labour at home for my second and third pregnancies, even if I didnt go all the way doing it. I´ll always remember my wonderful special at home, at beach time at least as much as I regret and question my ability to birth naturally and what could have, maybe, been.

Some more pieces.. I’ve taken so many pic’s of Graffiti but here’s some of my favourite ones…Palestine is very beautiful once u get past the intimidating check points, which is easy for anyone who’s not from Israel or Palestine (strange I know.)

Its has really lovely, friendly people and nice places to visit.

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Last day in Tel Aviv and then onto Nazareth and Jerusalem!!

one of these wee lovelys

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there’s nothing much cuter than boys in red jumpsuits with moves!

“There are people in this world who can only show their wounds by inflicting them.”

They push him to the ground, they take turns at punching him on his face and head, they lift him up and drag him along the footpath and then smash his face into the stone wall, they drop him again and kick him in the stomach and back all the time yelling abuse I can’t understand. They lift him up and again punch him in his face and his head hits against the stones. I can hear the whacks and thuds from across the street. I watch until it is over, I want them to see me watching.

A woman passing on their side of the street stops and yells at them, she starts screaming on her cell phone, I think she has called the police.

The  men leave, the old man picks himself up and is wiping his face with a towel, I cross over and walk beside him along the footpath wheeling my bike, he is carrying bags with him and appears homeless.

I walk half the block with him and then peddle away.

I find a seat, roll a ciggy and cry. I imagine how I would feel if this was my brother, my father or grandfather. 

People walking past me seem amused at my crying, they shrug, smile or laugh.

I don’t know what is normal anymore.

“And the story of my body is also a map of their unspeakable pain.”

Or mummmmmmmmy as a person too, or the mummmy experience. Really so often when i talk about my experiences as a parent/woman/person,  those who see me as other instead of human such as those non-parenting persons will compare me to their mothers,  i.e me… ¨I´m feeling grumpy and tired, think I´m premenstrual¨ others… ¨oh when my mother had her period she would be…¨ Calling forth a discussion about mothers periods. Mother is no longer (if she ever was) a person in eyes of group think but an institution. Another box I didn´t choose. Yes I could fill this in more but I´ve got a trillion more things to do before bed tonight and something is better than nothing.

My life as a person is so often only carved out as being the experiences of ¨a mother¨or as is often (almost always) when dealing with ¨men¨…the experiences of a women/mother, (barely a living being and rarely ever a friend in her own right.)

so STOP, LOOK and LISTEN, here i am writing again!

and i just wanted to say fuck you all, all you posturing politicians who will never read this or bother to add me to your blog rolls.

Go fuck yourselves, (and I think I heard this line in a song somewhere recently so its probably ok for a mother to say, now.)

well, i probably should.

Taking this as a sign that if I don’t find time to be really creative soon I may just end up self imploding, there may be nothing left of me except my mother self. My brain is like fluffy jelly fish on both sides, my soul needs an escape, an adventure, houdini.

No-one can rescue me but me,

drowning not dying, softly sink into the sand,

they don’t own the air, at least not yet.

We had a lovely afternoon at our favourite beach with asher and luca yesterday (I spend alot of time at the beach, but then I am a crab so you would expect it).

The water was all sparkly and clear and calm, even though i didn’t bring my togs i had a wee paddle about and collected some shells.

No one else at all was there, except a naked swimmer that I missed seeing. Oh well, better luck next time.

The end of summer is nigh, it is technically Autumn already, so it was nice to enjoy a final trek over the hill to Rapaki before it gets too wintery.