Ode to PARENTS WHO THINK

Raising children in a complex + troubled world

Welcome to this fumbling tender-heart place.

It’s not the place that fumbles with a tender heart; it’s me as I open this.

I prefer to be on audio, or pushing others forward into the spotlight with claps so loud that people swing around to locate whose doing those overloud bellowy hand noises.

That’s right. I’ve small hands that give unusually loud clap.

Note to self. Put that on my wanky corporate bio.

This is a place where imperfection lives. <Over long sentences, anyone?>

If you’re hoping for neatly packaged anything I’m happy to send you over to many an insta curation. Even the pretend messy ones, they’re up there as vom-bucket-worthy.

No right answers guaranteed here. No fancy pants patter. You might find me naff. It’ll be because I’m a human on the fly.

Most of all this is a place for our shared and vastly different experiences of raising children in a complex and troubled world.

I’m inviting your unfinished self to this space. Standing shoulder to shoulder, heart to heart, as much as we can with where we are.

I promise I’ll be showing up in the rough.

Had to look that up to be sure it’s what I want to say: “not even or smooth, often because of being in bad condition”.

YES. YES. YES. BRING IT ON

Come to the Party.

Tonight we will have a party

Only for the broken pieces.

Doll by Aimee Vogelsang

Only the crooked and the blunt ones

Are welcome tonight;

The shattered and the stained can come,

But you perfected ones should stay away.

All the orphans and exiles

Will be arriving soon with their

Bundles of rags and sorrow.

Make room, you bright angels:

Now the wounded are coming home.

Tonight will be a celebration of our tragedies

And our petty stupidities, 

Our shameful transgressions,

The unedifying failure

To become what we might have been

In other, more radiant lives.

Here are the unrelinquished griefs

And the never-forgiven slights;

Here is the stuttering clumsiness

And all the stagnant laziness.

Here is the hollow

In my heart.

Come in.

by Belinda Fewings

Welcome.

I’m so glad you’re here.

Outside, the Buddhas

And the Saints are laughing.

In here, there is a quieter

Communion of our tragedies.

Sit. There is food and cheap wine,

A warm fire and candles.

Eat. Drink. Then speak,

And we will all weep

Sticky and graceless tears.

At this party, we are dancing

To the tune of ten thousand folksongs,

by Clem Onojeghuo

Each one of imperfection

And darkly holy for it.

This is the party for the broken.

Imperfect music plays

For imperfect dancers.

Imperfect speeches are

Imperfectly spoken.

We bang tables and forget

Our words and

Wash the floor with our tears.

You shattered and stained beauties,

All crooked and graceless as you are,

Blunted by the hard world of death,

Love and the push of time’s spear;

You who are more glorious than statues,

As rich in stories as pirates,

As worthy as comets or stars,

This is the secret I want,

Tonight, to tell you:

by Brennan Wolf

Our dark-tongued singing

Reaches heavens even the Saints don’t know;

Our graceless, defiant dancing

Opens up the whole Universe. 

The broken world is our country.

The struggle is our homeland.

Tonight, let the Buddhas be silent;

In here, we will raise our glasses

To our brokenness, howl

And sing so loud and badly 

That all the bright and dark

Heavens will hear our song.

***

Big thanks to Tom Hirons