Happy Valentine's Day to you all!

I do have a little confession to make.

Yesterday I received my first ever red rose.

And no, I’m not telling you how old I am just so that you giggle at all my roseless years. I will say I’m north of 30 and south of 40 and that will just have to do.

None of the boyfriends I’ve ever had happened to be current on a February 14 and even though I was married for 10 years, it was to a man who, right from the start, loudly expressed the view that Valentine’s Day was a commercial holiday and he didn’t want to be told what day of the year he had to tell his wife he loved her when he could that any damn day he liked. Which probably would have been fine if he had told me any damn day – but he didn’t.

So no roses, no cards, no trinkets, no chocolates – no nuthin! I was a little disappointed but didn’t think it was a big deal. Valentine’s Day is not a big thing l here in Australia.

Now I’m married to my Captain Barnacle. A man who is patient, considerate, gentle, sweet and unbelievably wickedly naughty ^.^ And yesterday he gave me my very first ever red rose. Even though we’ve been together for a little while now, yesterday was the first Valentine’s Day where we’ve actually been in the same country. Circumstances had intervened in the last two years, seeing him first in the UK and then in New Zealand for February 14.

When we exchanged posted valentine’s cards in 2010 that was actually quite important for me. I’d never received a Valentine and I’d never sent one. It was as though I was standing up in public and saying “On this day, when lovers celebrate their love, I have celebrated you and the great things we share.” I was really excited and giggly about the whole thing and I’m not sure what made me happiest – giving a card or receiving one. I think the rest of the family were starting to wonder where the straitjacket had gone!

My ex saw the whole Valentine thing as some kind of commercial brainwashing just to make people buy buy buy. Having seen some of the catalogues in the last week I can see his point there. But then, I also think that his vehement, aggressive anti-valentine attitude is just as much brainwashing. Why can’t we give love trinkets that aren’t ridiculously commercial, to celebrate the joy we find in our relationships?? It’s not that hard to find a middle ground is it?

  

Do I “need” a gift on Valentine’s Day? No, I don’t – not like I need survival things like air and water and food and love. I KNOW my Captain Barnacle loves me.

What I do need though is that thoughtfulness of his that he shows everyday, because that’s how he lets me know that he loves and values me. My beautiful rose epitomizes that thoughtfulness. It was an unexpected, joy-filled gift and I don’t mind admitting it brought tears to my eyes. If I never get another – if that’s the only rose I ever get in my whole life, it will be enough. It’s something I’m never going to forget and a memory I’ll always cherish.

A Lil Bit Of What Comes Natural

Earlier last week I was in conversation with Captain Barnacle (my other half) on the sex education I received at school, particularly the book “Where Did I Come From?” Poor man – he’s the wrong generation so he missed out entirely on the joy of learning about sexual mechanics and fertilisation from a cartoon containing a cuddly mum and dad couple with a romantic, rose-carrying sperm dressed in black tie and tails. However, I digress.

Our 9 year old daughter (Cookie Monster) was there as well, listening to the conversation while she did other things till suddenly her ears perked up. “Wait a minute mum - how old were you when you had to learn this at school?” 

When I tell her I was 9, she looks surprised. “But I’m already 9 and I’ve known where babies come from for ages!”

This is sort of, kinda true. Cookie Monster was 3 when her little brother Fez Boy was born. She is a very insistent, logical and sometimes frighteningly intelligent kid. No cabbage patch or stork myth was going to suit her. When Cookie Monster herself was born, her older sister Exhibit B had been quite happy to accept “Mummy Tummy = Baby – so just wait and it will come out sooner or later.” By the time Fez Boy was expected on the scene however, six and three year old big sisters were demanding some concrete answers.

“How did it get in there?” was the number one question.

I answered it very neatly with “A seed from the dad meets an egg from the mum and they join together and the baby grows.” An honest answer that doesn’t go into the kind of extra detail my kids are likely to explain loudly to shocked old lady passersby in supermarkets. We spent time growing flowers from seeds and we checked out the baby animal farm exhibit at the local agricultural show that had several incubator boxes full of hatching chicks. And that was that.

Where Did I Come From? still has an important place though – neither little miss thought to wonder just how the seed got in there in the first place. I read the book with Exhibit B when she was 9 and planned to do the same with Cookie Monster although she did ask the difficult question when she was only 8 so we read it then instead.

What interests me in all of this though is that both Exhibit B and Cookie Monster are already curious about the biggest question of all. It’s not about the mechanics of sex, the process of fertilisation, the fascinating array of diseases one can catch, or any similar medical type issue. What they've been wondering about is relationships “How would you know if you were in love with the right boy? And how can you be sure if it’s a boy you’re looking for in the first place?”

It was while I was wondering about all of this that I read this opinion piece in the Sydney Morning Herald. http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/why-teens-should-read-raunchy-novels-and-straightup-smut-20120131-1qr97.html

And no, before you panic, I’m not planning on letting my urchins read naughty books for a while yet (well nothing naughtier than The Day My Bum Went Psycho anyway). It’s definitely some food for thought though.

My high school sex ed teacher was hilarious - but in retrospect, also frightening. When it came to sexual politics he was as enlightened as a brick. He wouldn't even use the word "sex", instead saying "a little bit of what comes natural". I'm so glad I had parents I could talk to and didn't have to rely on anything my teacher told us. I know there were plenty of kids in my class who weren't so fortunate.


Sex education shouldn't just be about medical horror stories or social stigmas and disasters. How do we teach good decision making instead? 

Bert Isn't With Us Anymore

Once a week I go to the nursing home and spend an hour with my Nana. I’ll probably blog a bit about it one day – it’s a very special time for me.

 Usually she’s eating her meal in the dining room and I sit with her and three of her friends before wheeling her down to her room. We have a good old natter about all sorts – as one does with grannies. These grannies are pretty no-nonsense, straightforward ladies who live with enthusiasm and have a knack for finding small joys in unexpected places. They’ve had their share of triumphs and failures and generally they aren’t backward about coming forward when it comes to sharing their opinions. I’ve found them to be a wonderful and supportive group and I love them a lot and I’m proud to be their friend.

 A couple of weeks ago however, it was more than a little bit weird. I was walking down the corridor, pushing Nana back to her room, accompanied by one of her table-mates (let’s call her Mrs D).

  

We went past a bed out in the corridor, the room obviously being stripped and cleaned out in preparation for a new resident.

“Yes,” said Mrs D, indicating the bed “Bert isn’t with us anymore.”

“That’s a shame,” I said, thinking Bert must have died and wondering why the home hadn’t lowered the flag to half mast like they normally do when a resident dies.

“He’s up there you know,” said Mrs D, indicating with a vague wave of her hand.

“Oh, right,” I replied, a bit lost for words because I’m starting to get really puzzled about the euphemisms – generally when they’re giving me the gossip they just said “So-and-so passed away yesterday.”

Mrs D went on “He doesn’t like it up there much, but he kept running about the carpark and the staff had to do something with him and it was the only solution.”

By this time I was starting to wonder which of us had gone insane and I was really, really hoping like mad that poor Bert wasn’t dead after all because it seems to be a very drastic way for the staff to solve his running about the carpark problem.

It turns out that Bert is now in the locked ward “up there” at the other end of the retirement home complex. It’s sad he doesn’t like it there, but thankfully he’s no longer running about the carpark at risk of being hit by a car.

It was a funny conversation and I’d totally misunderstood and we had a good old giggle about it afterwards. It did give me some food for thought.

I’ve lost a few people over the years and explaining those deaths to my kids wasn’t (still isn’t) an easy thing. I’ve tried hard to avoid the “going to sleep” phrase just in case it makes the kids terrified of bedtime. Other than that I talk about the way life has a beginning and an ending and the living is the bit in the middle. Sometimes a body is so broken or so tired it just can’t keep working anymore.

Death is a weird thing. People struggle to understand death and I suppose it’s easier to hide the subject rather than keep struggling. We avoid talking about death, we avoid thinking about death, and when death shoves itself into our faces and we can’t avoid it anymore, we use a plethora of clichés, euphemisms and hedge words in the hope that we can somehow disguise death.

Then so many of us go and watch explosive shoot-em-up movies on tv without a second thought.

In the cause (curse?) of insatiable curiosity I have decided to start a list of words and phrases that people use to avoid talking about death directly. Enquiring minds want to know. If you hear any weird ones, feel free to send them through.

Orstraya! Orstraya! Orstraya!

It’s Orstraya Day tomorrow and there’s been a bit of a fuss over the last day or so. Apparently there’s been a study done that claims that people who stick Australian flags on their cars are more likely to be racist. http://www.smh.com.au/wa-news/australia-day-car-flag-flyers-racist-20120123-1qdoi.html (Sydney Morning Herald 24/01/2012)

Of course this has led to a bundle of bogans loudly proclaiming “It’s not racist to wave a flag!” This kinda misses the whole point of the study really, but that’s your average bogan for you.

Even so, what I’m really curious about is this – where did the flagwavers come from?   It’s not so long ago that apathy was Australia’s national pastime and flagwaving was viewed as a highly suspicious activity carried out by other countries that (shock, horror) actually respected the wowsers they had in authority. Excessive patriotism was unOrstrayan and also a bit embarrassing.

Now we don’t just wave them, we decorate with flags and we dress up in flags. Hand me a flag and I’ll wave it in a moderate sort of way. Personally however, I do draw the line at putting the national escutcheon over my genitals but there must be plenty of people out there keen to do so cos lots of stores keep selling flaggy underwear.

I like being Australian. I’m proud of the good things we’ve done. I worry about the bad things we’ve done rather than just try to pretend they didn’t happen. I laugh about the silly things that happen. I appreciate the quirks that make us different from the rest of the world. I don't know how we ended up with flagwavers among us that's all.

Is it a good thing?

I just don't know - ask me again in 30 years time and we'll see.