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Motherhood

Oct 17
Love0

Where are all the clever girls?

By Life, Storytelling, Writing No Comments

Last week I finally got to see Bruce Beresford’s new movie, Ladies in Black, based on the novel by Madeleine St John. Two hailstorms and a cyclone had previously stopped me, and I was beginning to think I wasn’t meant to go. But the skies cleared, I went, and I absolutely loved it – especially the idea that ‘there’s nothing so wonderful as a clever girl,’ which is said by one of the characters in the movie, and is a theme which is developed and celebrated. It also made me sad. Angourie Rice, who plays one of the clever girls in the movie – Lisa –…

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May 14
Love0

Thumbs up to Mary – and Lilith

By Life No Comments

Mothers Day is complicated for me, because my son is non verbal, and has severe autism, and so a special occasion without presents for him, or cake, or a party, would have no meaning in his world. I’m very happy to make these things happen on days like Christmas, or his birthday, but not for myself. That would heighten the sense of the absurd that already hangs about ‘mothers day’ for me like the faint whiff of a chemical air freshener that I can’t quite separate from the perfume of fresh flowers. It’s manufactured to a certain extent, and then, on the other…

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Jan 13
Love1

The Outsiders

By Life No Comments

I’ve always felt like an outsider. I was born late, the last of my generation in my large extended family. I was too young to participate in my family’s life while it was all happening, and by the time I reached those milestones of family holidays and celebrations, I often as not did them with just my mother, or by myself. As I grew older I went to schools in other, far flung parts of Sydney – many long bus rides away. The inner city area we lived in – Glebe – was still mainly a slum then, and I…

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Jul 25
Love1

Friendship, martial arts and Reality TV

By Friendship 7 Comments

 “Adults don’t want to watch other people having sex. They want to see someone getting told off in a store!” So said Ronnie from Watch What Crappens, the podcast I listen to after I’ve watched the latest episode of The Real Housewives of New York. Ben had just been theorising about why we love to watch them so: “Because they’re a big part of the population who are otherwise absent from popular culture, maybe?” He said. “Women from 40 – 60 of age with real and interesting lives?” Or, as my friend, the late, great Demetrius Graves said, women who are finally…

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