This week has been hard, with the lead up to my Mum’s birthday and Isaac’s diagnosis of autism combining to make me maudlin and teary.

My research project for my drawing class is causing me some angst as well. Not much. But enough to contribute to this weeks tears.

I am researching myself. As a visual artist ultimately all my work comes from within myself. I chose myself as my subject because I wanted to examine why I do the things that I do. Why I am drawn to certain things and most importantly why I am happy to just skim over the surface and not really delve too deeply into anything that might require a bit of emotional effort.

Part of the research project is to collect historical data on the subject. Some of my historical data is in a suitcase that I can not bring myself to open.

During the lead up to my mothers funeral, my brother had all our child hood photos in his possession. They were in a blue suitcase that mum had kept in her wardrobe. After the funeral my brother returned the suitcase to mum’s house. I did not see or speak to my brother. All the photos of my father were gone,all the decent photos were missing, there were pages ripped out of albums, and the remaining jumble was  just thrown back into the case. It was heart breaking.

I have been staring at this case for a fortnight now trying to bring myself to open it again but I don’t think I can.

I have been skimming over the surface of who I am, and what influences contributed to make me the person I am today. I examined my relationship with the nuns and my early childhood memories of going to church and being thwacked with a cane every time I fainted and I have discarded those influences as not that important.

I have been trying to pry apart my own mythology and to see where the lines of myth and truth blur and every single thing leads me back to my father.

My father was an alcoholic who passed his love of a drink on to me. I do not drink. I have finished drinking.

My father liked to promise us the world and then on the day of the promise we would sit for hours in the car outside the pub.

My father lit his cigarettes with a match and would ask me if I had ever seen a match burn twice and put the still hot match onto the soft flesh of my arm.

My father tried to teach me to swim by carrying me, screaming in terror, out into the waves and throwing me into the water.

All the kids in the neighbourhood were frightened of my father as he liked to dispense summary justice with his boots and his fists and all the local hoons drove quietly past our house.

My father was killed in a car accident when I was fourteen and I battled with his ghost for a very long time.

When his ghost is strong, I still think that I am stupid and useless and really what is the point of anything anyway?

But my spirit is stronger. My spirit was always stronger. My father couldn’t break me.

I would not give in. I refused to let him win.

As a grown woman, I will not be told what to do. I will ask no mans permission to do anything or be anyone I damn well like.

Maybe pressing publish here will be the first step in really picking some emotional scabs and going down some paths I don’t want to travel.

Either that, or I will just take photographs of churches and pretend it was the nun’s fault.

Now onto the feedback.

I would like to thank my daughter Veronica from SleeplessNights who re did my blog for me. I am pleased with how the blog looks. The reason Veronica had to do a whole new blog design was because I wanted to be able to reply to people directly in the comments section and with my previous template that just wasn’t possible.

Previously I had been replying by email, though not to every comment every time, and I was starting to feel a bit guilty if I didn’t reply personally.

I am after some feedback, how do you think the new comment system is working?

Do you actually get the email notification when I reply to your comment?

Do you like it this way or would you prefer a private reply via email?

Or do you simply not care?

Though the words stunned, amazed, horrified and saddened would have worked equally as well.

What am I babbling on about?

I was watching the telly the other night when up popped Jamie Oliver and I found myself being sucked in to the vortex that was, Jamie Oliver’s food revolution. I was totally horrified to see that a whole classroom full of six or seven year old American children couldn’t identify a potato, a tomato, a cauliflower or any other fresh vegetable you cared to mention.

I was sitting there with my mouth wide open, totally gobsmacked.

Now I knew that some children thought that eggs came from the carton and milk came from the supermarket but to be faced with this scale of food ignorance just blew my mind. It is easy as an Australian to dismiss this as just an American thing but as we all know, where America goes the rest of the world follows.

What are we doing to our children?

When I drank, I drank a lot. I always maintained that I was a beeraholic not an alcoholic because there was wine in the cupboard and half a bottle of vodka on the shelf and surely if I was an alcoholic I would drink those as well.Wouldn’t I?

I wouldn’t have a beer until I was sure that I didn’t have to drive any where. I never drank and drive. Not because of any respect for the law but because I was crap at drink driving. The one time I drove drunk, I crashed the car. You really need lots of practice to be a good drunk driver and I am not that dedicated.

My blog personality is how I am in real life. I am funny and sweet, I am generous to a fault and I really am quite a nice person. I am well read and I can discuss anything from the breeding habits of snails to the reasons behind the sub-prime mortgage fiasco.I am impatient and demanding. My way is the best way(naturally.) I am opinionated and very loud. I am a control freak who doesn’t know how to delegate. I say outrageous things just for fun. Politically I am so far to the left that it is a wonder I dont walk with a tilt. I dont suffer fools and I will tell you, if you give me the shits.

I used to gather up strangers(mostly tourists) and bring them home for a meal but Jeffrey made me stop doing that. I pick up interesting looking hitch-hikers and sometimes I drive further than I intended because I am enjoying the conversation.Children and animals love me and I am a natural born storyteller.I could sell ice to eskimoes.I like to talk and sometimes I forget to listen. I am an Aquarian fire horse and when I am angry I stamp my foot and my nostrils flare, I fire up and explode. Then I am done and my anger is forgotten and I expect every one else to forgive and forget as quickly as I do.

Alcohol magnified all those traits by 100 and you either loved me or hated me. There was no middle ground. As a result I have some very very good friends and lots of aquaintances that think I am an arsehole.

I stopped drinking in April 2008. Anzac day is always a very emotional day for me and I would generally get rotten. I had been drinking beer all day and had topped up with nips of neat whiskey. That night I was a belligerent drunk and I had a nasty fight with my son. David walked down to his Nan’s at 1 am with me screaming at him to get back home and dont you walk away from me etc etc.

I woke up the next morning knowing something BAD had happened and then I started to remember bits and pieces of what had happened. Oh Shit.

I put off ringing Mum for as long as I could because I knew she would be furious with me. When I finally was brave enough to pick up the phone she didn’t disappoint one little bit. Furious wasn’t the word. Mums anger was icy and terrible.

David came home later on that day and I apologised to him and we held each other close.

I didn’t make a conscious decision that day not to drink again, it just sort of happened. One day turned into two, turned into a week turned into a month. When people would ask me why I had stopped drinking, I would make some flippant reply because I was ashamed of the real reason I stopped. I had done something that I swore I would never do, I had become my father.I had hurt my son. Luckily the damage wasn’t irrepairable but his wounds were deep.

I avoided my Mother because I was ashamed.  I reluctantly visited her on Mothers day and we didn’t speak about Anzac day but it was there, the elephant in the room.

Six weeks later Mum was diagnosed with cancer and there is nothing like a life threatening illness to make you sort out your priorities. The elephant vanished with a pop and we embarked upon the next stage of our relationship.

I dont know how many times I said to Veronica. “I am so pleased that I am not drinking” and her reply was always, “We are so pleased you are not drinking as well.”

to be continued…