On days like this one, I real­ize how lit­tle one needs to be happy. Pleasures in life can be sim­ple. Very simple.Although I won­der some­times, if we know what brings them to us at all.

The sun was shin­ing and the warmth of the day was breez­ing through the house, call­ing us out. As usual, we could not resist. The girls were itch­ing to go ride their bikes down at the big park­ing lot, so Mr.Blab gladly offered to take them. I, on the other hand, felt the need to just, be. I helped him strap the boy to his back and sent them off to be active, after which made some cof­fee, grabbed a pile of mag­a­zines and the bean bag and went to catch some sun on my deprived skin.

Sitting on the bag, with every bead sup­port­ing my body, I rested my head back and closed my eyes. The rays were gen­tly stroking me, noth­ing like the feisty sum­mer ones, these were soft and lov­ing. I got warm and more relaxed with every pass­ing moment. The mag­a­zines and the cof­fee were wait­ing, right there, to the right, I just had to open my eyes and reach. In a minute. Just a minute.

I didnt fall asleep. I wasnt really awake either. I was so relaxed and warmly bathed in sun, that who knows exactly where I was. I dont really care, frankly. I thought sit­ting out there, sip­ping cof­fee and flip­ping through some mag­a­zines was what I needed, but it turns out, I needed some­thing else.

We seem to rarely actu­ally know what makes us happy. There may be a few ideas float­ing up there, we may even believe we have the answer — a new car, a new house, a dif­fer­ent color on the walls or that job over there — and yet, when we achieve it we real­ize that this wasnt it. So we try again, put the aim, work hard and miss; put the aim, work hard and miss. While the whole time we may be miss­ing the things that actu­ally can bring that silly grin in our souls.

Going with the flow, being open minded and aban­don­ing plans is not always the irre­spon­si­ble domain of lost air­heads. Sometimes it is the only way for us to be saved from the well-made plans we have drawn for our­selves on the way to an unful­filled life in an immac­u­late, per­fectly painted and coör­di­nated house.

We watched Men in Black tonight. We pile up on the floor in front of the screen, all within an arms reach of the huge pop­corn bowl, and enjoy our weekly movie expe­ri­ence. And then out of the blue, I was served a pos­si­ble answer of some thoughts that have been mak­ing their rounds in my head lately.

I am find­ing it hard to rec­on­cile a lot of what is hap­pen­ing around me in any way that will make it eas­ily digestible. Politically, for exam­ple, one of the main issues on the agenda for the main par­ties in the upcom­ing elec­tions is that of unau­tho­rized arrivals and asy­lum seek­ers — or as they are known around here by the deroga­tory name of boat peo­ple. Anyone that has no idea about what is hap­pen­ing would be think­ing Australia is over­run by these peo­ple and at gen­uine risk of destruc­tion. Yet, once some facts enter the arena and it becomes clear that the num­bers are about 1% of the total immi­grant intake, that there are at least 10 times more ille­gal immi­grants from over­stay­ing vis­i­tor visas and about 90% of those who come by boats are even­tu­ally rec­og­nized as refugees, sud­denly those 100 or so peo­ple who pos­si­bly may be try­ing to cheat the sys­tem seem more than triv­ial. Especially hav­ing in mind all the hate, prej­u­dices and pho­bia that is cre­ated towards some of the most unfor­tu­nate and des­per­ate peo­ple around. And peo­ple as a whole buy it and invent numer­ous excuses for inhu­mane treat­ment that should not be hap­pen­ing in a coun­try like Australia.

On the other hand, I dont believe peo­ple are bad, mali­cious or hor­ri­ble. So I find issues like the one above very hard to mold into a com­fort­able shape for my consciousness.

And then tonight, rested in the bean bag, dip­ping my straw­ber­ries in some warm choco­late sauce a sim­ple quote on the flick­er­ing screen spoke to me:

A per­son is smart. People are dumb, pan­icky dan­ger­ous ani­mals and you know it.

At this moment I have to agree.

There is some­thing creepy in the Lonely Planet’s travel guides — dark and seedy, also known as sex­ism. If you are look­ing blankly at the screen, I hope not, but if you are, please read quickly the Wikipedia page on the mat­ter. Otherwise what I am about to blab on will make very lit­tle sense.

I have looked at these guides many a times before and it never occurred to me that some­thing was not right. Its not sur­pris­ing since sex­ism is so ram­pant, so wide­spread that it has pretty much become the norm.

This time, maybe because of acquired life expe­ri­ence, I was slapped in the face with the cold wet hand of pleas­antly served sexism.

Lets have a look.

Here is a typ­i­cal con­tents page in a Lonely Planet book:

Under Facts for the Visitor are numer­ous help­ful sec­tions.  Basic touristy stuff — visas, doc­u­ments, money. Conveniences and stan­dards — inter­net, pho­tog­ra­phy, time and mea­sures. Health issues. Information for chal­lenged in some way  trav­el­ers — dis­abled, senior, those with kids. And oth­ers. Then, amongst the list, a spe­cial sec­tion exists for women trav­el­ers. Judging by the posi­tion they are given,  they are either con­sid­ered to be of spe­cial health con­cern or as peo­ple deserv­ing spe­cial assis­tance as tourists, com­ing before those with phys­i­cal dis­abil­i­ties . I am not sure which is worst.

But lets give them the ben­e­fit of the doubt and file that under: a stu­pid deci­sion, of a hur­ried edi­tor, that just hap­pened to stick to each and every one of their guidebooks.

I have taken a quick shot of the help­ful infor­ma­tion kindly pro­vided to women by Lonely Planet — Central Asia:

(more…)

Mr.Blab is a col­lec­tor, as he likes to call it. I call it other things. One of the items he has accu­mu­lated over the years are travel guides, cause we havent just sud­denly real­ized our love of travel, the bug has been planted long ago, and the itch has been scratched before. We have been dream­ing of an extended trip for years. The long term plan was to make a full run around Europe with a motor-home once we retire. South America has been a dream des­ti­na­tion for both of us, as nei­ther of us has been there. And of course the full fam­ily around the world trip is not a new idea, although up until now it was not more than a day dream.

Finally, those guides are needed and now they are piled on the office floor and just about every­where around the house. And if that was not enough, we have bor­rowed numer­ous books from the libraries around us — some infor­ma­tive, oth­ers of adven­tures peo­ple have taken. There is so much infor­ma­tion that needs to be processed, I have caught myself a few times over­whelmed and won­der­ing how we can put it all together in any sort of usable format.

For exam­ple, the ini­tial idea was to buy a motorhome in Europe and save a bunch of money over the months on acco­mo­da­tion and trans­port. Then sell it in the end. But then more infor­ma­tion comes to light and sud­denly that plan doesnt seem as good or straight for­ward as it did yes­ter­day. Should we get rail­passes? Should we take the bus? Where do we want to go, or much harder ques­tion to answer, where dont we mind not going? Because as long as a year sounds, the world is rather big and we will barely man­age to scrape the sur­face of it. On top of that, when you are try­ing to do it as cheaply as pos­si­ble, the plans need to be flex­i­ble and realistic.

The plane tick­ets? Oh, the plane tick­ets. This one is prov­ing a tough one too.  I thought it will be a good idea to buy the tick­ets from Asia, make our way to there our­selves and skip a con­ti­nent on the RTW ticket — cause you pay accord­ing to how many of them you want to visit. After some search, we were unpleas­antly sur­prised that tick­ets from Asia are much more expen­sive, so this money sav­ing trick was not going to be sav­ing us any money. Boo-hoo.

Next was to cut off South America and just make our way down there when we reach North America. Maybe a short flight from Miami down to Venezuela. Maybe drive down there (not a good idea). Then bus around the con­ti­nent as needed. And this way if we run out of time by the time we get there, we can skip — I cant believe I am say­ing this — South America, and save it for a dif­fer­ent trip. This is still hang­ing unde­cided too.

The best part of this process so far has been…you! After I put out my plea for free acco­mo­da­tion any­where around the world, your responses and open wel­com­ing arms have warmed my soul more than I would have thought. Thank you very much from the bot­tom of my melted heart!

The girls have had fun putting green dots for every open door we have on the map. And other col­ored ones for places they want to go. Oh, and we have a brand new map, of course. Wipe-able, so we can wipe the excited draw­ings of the kids be flex­i­ble.

This is a very small frac­tion of the stuff that is hap­pen­ing in our house at the moment. Its excit­ing, its strange, its scary at times, its so won­der­ful that seems unimag­in­able and impos­si­ble. I won­der where this process will end?

Until then I have a lot of green dots on a wipeable map to warm me up on cold nights like tonight.

A dear friend of mine is hav­ing a baby in the com­ing weeks. It always melts me a lit­tle bit when it hap­pens, although I am rarely around to truly expe­ri­ence with them the preg­nancy and those first weeks and months that can be so hard for a new mom. And I so wish I could. They prob­a­bly dont needs me, there is fam­ily around. It doesnt stop me from dream­ing about being a sup­port per­son, as I feel I have some­thing to con­tribute. Most of it not what one would prob­a­bly think of. I feel I can pro­vide true under­stand­ing for the sit­u­a­tion with­out all the glossy, made up, dreamy stu­pid frilly details. Blah! Sorry about that.

Maybe I am a bit nuts, or maybe I have a skewed view of the real­ity, I guess its quite pos­si­ble. I am far from think­ing what I see and expe­ri­ence is The Truth. But, a new mom needs work­ing hands around her, not bal­loons and flow­ers that she has to won­der where to put and then after a few days they start to wilt and make a mess every­where, even stink up the place. Then its a huge chore to clean them up, cause the leaves fall and break when you even approach them… and wash the slimy vases…Working hands. Someone to tidy up, wash the clothes, make food, wash the dishes after­words and all of it with­out her hav­ing to ask OR wait. A per­son to make a warm drink, while she is cud­dling the new per­son in her life on the sofa and then to have a quiet chat with. A per­son who doesnt expect her to be cheery and glow­ing or in the least bit enter­tain­ing. Because those first moments of moth­er­hood are not easy, espe­cially in our soci­ety where women are iso­lated from other women and all the real  sup­port that they could actu­ally get. Most are alone, hid­den behind the white sheet that is show­ing the pro­jected image of the cheery, lov­ing new mom — per­fectly groomed, ener­getic, smooth skinned with „her body back”. Vomit. Sorry about that.

So I dream to be to one of my friends, what I have always wanted for myself. And yet I won­der even if we didnt move and I was there with them, will I have been able to do it? Will my offer have been taken as an inva­sion of some sort? Will I have even offered? Cause we are all so inde­pen­dent now, love is only allowed from those we share blood and rings with. Or so it seems.

For now I set­tle down to send­ing mod­est gifts for show­ers far away and hope that the love I have put in them will come through even a lit­tle bit. Cause I could not bring myself to giv­ing bot­tles, paci­fiers, frilly pants or spa acces­sories for mom. Sorry about that.

This has to be my favorite doll I have made so far. I was even tempted to keep it. Filled with wool and chick­peas, which gave it a lovely heav­i­ness around the lower part of the body.

The birds…the birds…

The plan was dif­fer­ent, very dif­fer­ent. The idea is from this tuto­r­ial. The first issue was that I could not make the whole mobile as I had to send it by post, so I thought of mak­ing a one branch mobile. Weeeeel, not so quick, missy. Its not easy at all to make those birds stay upright with the branch, as they just want to flop down and look dead. After numer­ous attempts at mak­ing it work and deep into the night, I gave up and made a sim­ple hang­ing dec­o­ra­tion. Boo-Hoo.

I also sent her a child/baby jour­nal if she wants to write down the devel­op­ments and her thoughts of the year that is com­ing up.

And that is all. Packed in a box, flown over and deliv­ered by another dear dear  friend at a shower far away. And I want to give so much more.

Maybe one day.

I have not for­got­ten, there are more ques­tions left and I will get through all of them.

Today we will bring for­ward Vanya’s ques­tions, which was:

Ok, so here’s my ques­tion… Do you teach your kids any spir­i­tual beliefs/values and if so, what are they and how do you go about it?

As far as reli­gious spir­i­tu­al­ity, no. I dont think I have a reli­gious bone in my body. I have delved, I have read and explored and I can actu­ally appre­ci­ate the com­plex­ity of them all. I can also appre­ci­ate and under­stand that reli­gions give a lot of peo­ple what they feel they need in their lives. I am obvi­ously not one of those peo­ple, as they make me more con­fused and instead of answer ques­tions, actu­ally give rise to a lot more in my mind. And believe me, it needs not any more food, its a beast as it is.

Couple that with my belief that peo­ple should be free to find their ways and what works and makes sense to them as far as these things go and the answer will be no, I dont teach my kids this kind of spirituality.

Also, even though I may be seen as an alter­na­tive crunchy nut by many,  I dont believe in spir­its, in any kind of all mighty power, in ener­gies that I can con­trol or that run­ning bare­foot in the for­est will get me closer to the fairies.  I do know that if I find myself in a cir­cle of women in the mid­dle of the same for­est, with fire warm­ing my face, my hands hold­ing that of another, the wind blow­ing gen­tly in my hair and if we are maybe singing or laugh­ing or shar­ing sto­ries that I will feel a power. To me that is sim­ply the power and joy of being amongst oth­ers, of belong­ing and of being accepted.

Even though my first reac­tion to your ques­tion was to respond with a no, the real­ity is that I do try to present val­ues to the kids which I feel will help them achieve a cer­tain level of men­tal health — spir­i­tual well being. Not only that, but to be mind­ful of  oth­ers. Because, I dont think its pos­si­ble to achieve the first if along the way one tram­ples over the lives and hap­pi­ness of others.

We have dis­cussed racism, fem­i­nism, gay rights, all sorts of reli­gions and his­to­ries of such. We talk a lot about expe­ri­ences and view points — how not every one sees the same things in the same event. I would say that the girls are very emo­tion­ally intel­li­gent and have a won­der­ful grasp of feel­ings and read­ing oth­ers. Sometimes this is not in my favor as they sense my inner mood even when I am try­ing to hide it, because I know its wrong. But hey, cant win them all.

On the other hand I dont want them to be only or mainly con­cerned with oth­ers and try to help them build a love and appre­ci­a­tion of them­selves. Not that the one is dif­fer­ent from the other, as I am not sure a per­son that val­ues them­selves will be dis­mis­sive of those around them. Again, I think it all goes hand in hand.

Not sure if this answers your ques­tion, as I am not even sure how to define spir­i­tual for myself. At the moment I see it as a… sense of self and the world around us.