Saturday, April 03, 2010

Tangles




Easter is upon us again though it was only Christmas yesterday. My daughter was born on an Easter Sunday eight years ago and has just had her birthday and tomorrow is Easter Sunday. I travelled with my ex and daughter up to my Mum's farm to celebrate her birthday. This was a wish of my daughter as she wanted to share it with all of us in a place we love. We all obliged and as we have always managed to get on pretty well, we had a peaceful and happy celebration day.

The exercise was not totally painless as even though I instigated the split from my daughter's dad, I still find myself embroiled in many conflicting emotions when we all get together. My ex's father died only a couple of weeks ago and I was pulled back into the orbit of his family for his funeral. This began the process of revisiting old strong connections. I loved his Dad and treasure all the time in his company. I know in his way he did too and also that he was upset and angry when left his son. I feel guilty about the impact that this decision had on his parents and his death certainly made me feel it all the more keenly.

Interestingly my ex is moving forward now and has perhaps found someone new and I know this has exacerbated my own strange chemistry of regret and need. It is not a very pretty picture and I wish I could be freer and less tangled.

Which leads me to the pictures above.

My daughter had a rough night last night with ear pain and we ended up at a local hospital till all hours. Things have sorted today and her ears are much better. So I thought we should make a fun excursion into the wilds of my Mum's place. Her Dad has returned home so at this point it is just the three generations of female family here. So we packed some crayons and took of to explore the 'wild'.
Mum's property is really an environmental project and she has spent much energy restoring the land to original health, particularly the riparian areas along the creek. So we meandered through very tall grass and soon found ourselves in the 'wild'. As we clambered over the areas photographed above I marvelled at the writhing tangle of vines and the extraordinary mesh of left over branches and debris from a recent flood. My daughter wanted to get deeper into the 'wilds', so we stumbled and slipped and giggled our way into the tangle till there was no sky to see.

And I realized that it is all right to feel the messiness of life. Things are never perfectly ordered. We are always slipping up, losing our way and finding it in a different way.

It is hard to accept sometimes and I know I lose a lot of sleep struggling against the tangled order of things. But there it is...