I just found my three and half year old wandering the hallway at 11.30pm and she looked up at me, still pretty much asleep and on her way to my bed, and said: I slepted in my bed ALL night! Well, close enough sweet pea...

so I showed her the fairy lights on outside in the garden, and the stars so bright tonight, and then tucked her and her crazy fluffy hair into my bed.

I thought it was only fair given she helped me make the bed this morning, with my new Egyptian cotton 320 threads per sq inch king size sheets...my Christmas present to myself.

Tragic but true, I know.

Under the apple tree
the plum tree
shelter from the sun piercing down
eating like Italians
or maybe French
we laugh
we drink
we celebrate our embryonic friendships
as children flutter about
...a perfect Christmas.

TAGGED!!

Yikes!!!
Ok, here goes, five things you may not know about me:

1) When I was 8, I was put into the Brisbane Children's Hospital, but I wasn't sick. I was tested for all kinds of things - IQ, psychology tests, etc etc but I have never known what I was doing there. All I know is that I wasn't sick, but to try to fit in I used to hold all of my dinner in my mouth, chewed up and then dramatically spit it out on the table. I was with cancer kids, and accident kids and I was just so healthy and normal. I think my crossword fetish began at this time too, cos I was so bored.

2) I don't think anybody knows this one...my IQ is 140. And I have to say for a smart girl I do some really stupid things. And it's kind of a strange thing too, to have a high IQ and such cripplingly low self-esteem at times. I've only just started to realise that I process information differently to a lot of other people, or I just seem to be able to intuit a lot of information quickly. Not great at numbers though, I have to say. One thing I do know though, is that this figure has nothing to do with how well I live my life or the people I love.

3) I hate the way I look. Every day I find it hard to look in the mirror. I don't, I can't really see myself. I've only had a full length mirror for about three years and I really struggle to examine my reflection. Yesterday my friend said that I was a stunning woman. It doesn't make sense to me. At all. I don't identify with stunning, beautiful, pretty etc...at all. Feels very alien.

4) I wish I had a million dollars in the bank. I really do, nearly every day, just wish I had so much money I didn't have to think, worry about it all the time. The worry I feel around money is this undercurrent lying just below the surface of everything I do. I think about all the good things I could do if I had a lot of money. How much more money I could give away to the people that really need it, the things I could organise...Intellectually I know that I'll never be hungry again, but I still don't really get it.

5) I want to be married. I want to commit to somebody for the rest of my life, and do everything I possibly can to ensure that it works, with that underlying feeling of shared commitment and purpose.

*Big sigh*, so now you all know, if you didn't before, what a nutcase I am. And you know, I feel so normal and mostly pretty good about myself. But in doing this I didn't want to think about it too much, plan it, be clever or witty, I just wanted to write down what came. And now when I read it, it kind of feels foreign to me, but it's so me. It's certainly a part of the essence of me..things I think about, worry about nearly every day. Makes me feel a bit sad really.

Merry Christmas everyone xx

The sun shines brilliant green
through holly leaves, edged lime
Entwined, supine on the soft blanket-
Bellies full.

Blurry eyed
Blurry bodied
the space between us disappears
and we merge, stifling yawns.

Filling out before me
I feel your worry
and you let me see you.
Honoured.

Closer
closer...
thinking about death.
I'm so happy.

One way or another
morning finds flowers
or the confettied petals of flowers
adorning the sheets and your
honeyskin waking self.

Or jewellery of rainbow light
painting the simple walls
with prisms of intensity
as we body paint each other
with wild pallettes
of skin on skin
blushing.

And then, a moment, bolting through the rain and hail, soaked, stripped, plummet into warm inviting bath...and I look at him and feel more connected than I've felt for a very long time.

Has it been so long, is my faith so weak that I didn't recognise it?

And it didn't stop.

All weekend, very little sleep, both banal and riveting conversations, lots of giggling and tender staring moments and I was totally there. My heart felt so full, so accessible to him, and he saw it and took it all and honoured it with his embrace. Arms wide open.

Such easy, seamless intertwining of bodies and ideas like a rare exotic dance brought out for a visiting dignitary.

And now he's gone and I'm floating like the mist outside swirling around the trees.