Bong! Bong!

It's midnight and my time as a full-time mom has been called. From today i start work again with the RSPB. While full-time working mom is something i have done before, i must say i am completely terrified. Simply because i have so enjoyed my life as full-time mom and i'm not quite sure how the transition is going to go. Over the past two years, since the start of this blog really, i have discovered and learnt so much. Here are some of the wonderful lessons that these past two years have brought me. I honour them and all the women, children and friends who have walked with me along the way.

1. I am no longer afraid of children. This may strike some as odd, but before i was full-time mom, i just didn't know how to relate to kids. Having spent these two years so immersed in them, they have taught me how wonderful it is to be a child. They have been so patient with me, allowing me to share their space, and at the school, the children have been especially generous allowing me to document their work and their world. Their dignity and integrity, and their innocence, their trust in us is something which i will cherish. For these reasons, i cannot understand how we as a society have failed them so badly. For the children, i will always work for. For the children, i will always live.

2. I became a domestic goddess. Yes, this were the two years i learnt how to manage a house. Freed from the prejudice that housework was menial labour, i was finally able to learn how to organise the house, keep it clean and do things like the dishes and bins and laundry properly. I also learnt how to bake, roast and love making things out of potatoes, which i used to regard as a highly inferior staple, as compared to rice, for instance. I learnt how to use the internet to get recipes and discovered how to correct a recipe which was missing something. My proudest moment? Making our gingerbread houses. And the deep satisfaction when i see how the organisation systems i've put into place have worked.

3. Gardening suddenly made sense. Having time to work in the garden and spend time with people who grew vegetables - instead of theororising about it - as well as through a series of trials and errors, i finally cracked the garden. We grew our own potatoes this year, planted a reasonably good herb garden and did a modest hedge. I still have lots to learn and sometimes i wonder about the wisdom of doing anything at all in the garden because whenever we go away in the summer i come back to tropical rainforest. However, perhaps with the credit crunch long holidays away will be off the menu.

4. I stopped depending on supermarkets and made friends with my shopkeepers. This were the two years i finally got down to John's farm in Helen's Bay, had time to get to know Alan and made Iona a real part of my life. I also got to know all the cafes and cafe people in Holywood. I even got to know the streetcleaners and librarians. We still go to supermarkets, but only for things like school snacks and smoothies. Everything else we buy elsewhere, supporting the local economy.

5. I did not manage to get over my phobia for administrative shite. That was quite disappointing.

6. Oh, of course, i really became a part of the Steiner community. And had lots of time for my friends, although not as much as i thought i would. I will really really really miss being with people whom i want to be with - as opposed to people i must be with because i get paid to. The good part about this though is that the RSPB is filled with people whom i do share a vision with as well and that is probably why i am going back to work. It's because i do believe in what the organisation stands for. It maybe masculinist, patriarchal and incredibly corporate with all the attendent politics, but strip all that rubbish away and the work it does is absolutely vital.

7. And i found my own voice. Oh the ironies of ironies. Freed from chasing my tail, i had time to write, think and be with people who nourished me. Truly good people who were really really good for me and my soul and that enabled me to become myself. I became able to strip away the bits of me which had me slapped on by the expectations of others and give time and space to the pieces of me which had been buried. It has been such an incredible journey to freedom. I refocussed on what was important to me, detatched from the things which were no longer critical, and learnt how to tell what was true and what rang false. In these two years i found the small beginnings of wisdom.

I have discovered that the more one gives and more one receives. It is a silly cliche, but it's true. The more you give, without a thought, the more blessings you receive. But they may not seem like blessings at first. The universe takes care of us, if we take care of others.

8. Lastly, but not leastly, i learnt the humility in walking the path. That it was not about the politics of the head, but the courage of the heart. That knowledge is dead if we do not put it into action. I learnt how difficult this was because action means hardwork and graft - that it is not always exciting. In fact sometimes, a lot of the time, it can be downright tedious and dull. But only to the mind that would regard it as tedious and dull. It is the day to day that counts the most though. The cooking of the meals, the filling of the bag, the emptying of the bins, the wiping of the table. Life must consist of these things as well. Without the small humble things, everything is built on sand. It is the small humble things that are solid, that in their simplicity and poverty are true and beautiful. That in the end are the things that endure, that bear witness. The root, the foundation upon which we build our lives.