Despite the record breaking cold days and school holiday routine changes, we have made it here again. There’s definitely something up with this The Overshare as I, Anna, am writing the intro. Such passages are not my forte, so I decided to fill the space with words about the fact that this is awkward. Read on!
The Overshare is broken up into seven sections: Listen Up–for all things auditory and musical, All The Feels–for sensory gadgets and neurodivergent products we are loving, Off The Shelf–bookish things including what we are reading and upcoming events, Uh Oh–life disasters, bloopers and social mistakes, Leaving The House–pretty self explanatory, Who Put Me In Charge–challenges in parenting, executive functioning, and life admin, and Scratch Pad–to share new writing bits and pieces. Let’s do it.
Listen Up
Anna: I’ve been listening to new band called Kishi Bashi, and their album Lighght. I like a lot of indi music but don’t consider myself a music person, so it was a surprise to me and my online mate when we shared a love of Sufjan Stevens, Grizzly Bear, and Iron and Wine. I was even more surprised to find out he’d met them all. ALL. He just randomly stood by the stage at gigs years ago and was asked to help carry gear. Apart from Sufjan, who he met while looking at a school campus with his sister. Sufjan (we are now of first name basis) handed him an album after they had a lovely chat. As you do.
This third hand experience finally gained me some kudos with my own music-man (who I married). I don’t usually enter conversations about music because I don’t always know the musician or the song name, or album titles and years. All the facts are lost to me in place of a love for their vibe.
Kay: The manuscript I am working on is due in August so I am in that last blitz period of thinking about the project every minute of every day, and working on it as much as possible. When I’m more stressed than usual I run more and therefore listen to more podcasts too. I am always keeping up with Better Words, The First Time, James and Ashley Stay At Home, and So You Want To Be A Writer for writing inspo.
In terms of newer additions to the rotation, I have started listening to and loving The Imposter Syndrome Club. The interviews and conversations are around so many elements of working in the creative industries and a great reminder that we aren’t alone in our insecurities.
All the feels
Anna: I’ve taken up cross-stitch again – a family favourite. Why am I putting this in All The Feels? Because the sensory joy of pulling the thread through is real. To feel the completed stitches is like running your hands over a completed jigsaw. This simple, and dare I say… mindful… sensory joy fills much of my days at the moment. When the world is a wild tempest of pain, and the difficulties to massy for my strength, I can focus on the most simple of sensations to bring it all back to the thread and cloth. If I finish in good time I’ll pop a pintrest post of our little works!
Kay: I don’t have much to add here, other than that I bought a secondhand Uniqlo Teddy Coat recently and it is the best. So many winter things are itchy or uncomfortable, but this coat is the softest thing in the world. I don’t know if they are named that because they make you look and feel like a giant teddy bear, but that’s what they do!
Off the shelf
Kay: I have two #LoveOzYA recommendations this month, from two brilliant authors that were on the Sydney Writers’ Festival schools program. The first is The Cult of Romance by Sarah Ayoub. It is a heartfelt, funny novel that hits all the beats I love from a romance and offers such a complex look at culture, identity and family as well.
The next is My Spare Heart by Jared Thomas. I loved Jared’s last YA novel Songs That Sound Like Blood and listening to him talk about My Spare Heart made it an instant buy for me. It is a powerful book and one I really enjoyed reading.
Anna: I’m sharing an old love this time. I confess to being a re-reader to the point of obsession. Or just textual love? Whatever it’s called, in times of extreme need I have leant on epic fantasy series’ like The Belgariad and Dragons of Pern. My mother read Agatha Christie while in labour, and I read Katherine Kerr and Anne McCaffrey. I read their series again and again, with relaxation music playing, and probably some Nag Champa burning too. Then when I was in labour, I just turned on the Tony O’Connor and I was back inside these other worlds. The pain relief was real. I particularly resonated with Killashandra’s intense love and hate of mining crystals. That’s a reference many won’t get, but if you’ve read it, you’ll know what I mean. Also, please may I have a sonic bath of ‘radiant liquid’.
Uh Oh
Anna: 2pm is the time to leave the house. Cancelling on friends is the worst feeling. Knowing that they prepared to accommodate you and your kids in many ways. That my son stayed over night with them and today is the big party and yet… you can’t leave the house. You’ll spend a month knowing an outing is approaching and make sure that the days before and after are clear, where possible, and that everyone knows what’s about to happen. You wake up with every intention of making that step, and encouraging my child to do the same. The day continues with that intent. 12 pm and you’re eating the right amount, sure that your hair isn’t a complete bed-head look. Child is also fed and watered. 1 pm and she’s clear she won’t get out of her onesie. Her best friend wants to connect and play minecraft on the iPad. They don’t attend the same school and she is her BEST FRIEND in the whole world who finally has time to play. You are caught wanting to participate in social rituals and show your friend you care about her and her son’s birthday. We cancelled. My son came home early because he ate too much and felt ill.
Sometimes… we fail a bit. Uh Oh.
At least we do it together.
Kay: Burnout is looming–I described myself recently as feeling like I’m in a cave that is collapsing around me and I am trying to leg it towards the opening. Bit dramatic, but that’s where I’m at. The combination of book deadline, normal life stress (so many appointments, people going through hard times, everything is so expensive!), and big parenting stuff all seems to have come to a head at the moment and I can feel my support needs going up and up. I am missing appointments and social engagements, losing my words, forgetting to text people back, I’m more clumsy and struggling with household stuff, forgetting to eat… the list goes on. Once I submit this book I am going to take a break from external commitments for a while. It’s not exactly an upbeat update, but this is The Overshare.
Leaving The House
Kay: Haven’t really been doing this! I mean, technically we are spending a lot of time in the garden and that is outside the house…
Anna: Kay we are running out of word limit! The last and next section are me going out (or not) AND being in charge, so we can skip ahead. Or back. We make the rules here.
Who Put Me In Charge
Anna: I am now the parent of an adult. What?! As part of a series of terribly timed presents, I took my daughter to a mineral floatation tank. I can’t even pretend this wasn’t an intense pseudo-birthing experience. Yes, we shared a couple’s tank. We laughed and bumped into each other for a while, doing the RELAX NOW thing: two people with ADHD trying so darn hard, it was hilarious! After she got up to quickly shower off the 40kg of magnesium rich water that had entered her eye, we settled. For the last ‘bit’ (there is no time) we completely zoned out. Confronting, soothing, spiritual and just plain old warm - we both loved it. Those minutes (hours, years?) of being suspended in the bouncy water counted as therapy, massage, and togetherness. Perhaps this is my radiant fluid. She wasn’t born in the water like my other two, we had mycelium in the waters and had to hop out, but I did labour in the water…
Funny anecdote: Eighteen years ago the entire water system in north Brisbane went out. The WATER. I was advised to stay home longer than usual. The alternative was to transfer to a south Brisbane hospital. The idea of a completely unfamiliar and medicalised environment terrified me. The Birth Centre I belonged to at the RBWH had midwife led care, and a homely room with giant tub. A double bed and soft yellow lights. I held out, and we made it in time, with water. My next two were born there too, right in the tub. I was extremely lucky. I would be just as proud if I’d been down the hall having a cesarean. I’d been around birthing women for a long time; from emergency surgery to week long agony and medical intervention. However we get them out is birthing. I was spared another trauma to my mind and body for those three moments. Not because I deserved to be, just because everything fell into place. I worked hard, researched and meditated for months. This was so I could hopefully handle the birth not going to plan.
I will always associate those waters with pain relief, weightlessness, and did I mention the pain relief? I loved giving birth, every time. I was crap at being pregnant and breast feeding and parenting and all the rest - but birth I could do. I’m grateful for the only real moments in my life I was at one with my body. I’m not crying, btw. Nope.
Kay: That sounds so nice! As I mentioned in the last newsletter, I have been reading a lot about PDA (Pathological Demand Avoidance) lately. It is a terrible name, similar to ADHD in the way it is named for how it impacts other people, rather than the actual experience of living it. If you’re not familiar with PDA, I quite like this explainer. I am also a fan of Kristy Forbes and the work she is doing here. I am still learning, and I have seen a bit of discussion online around the name, as well as whether it is an autism profile or its own thing, whether it is a ‘complex trauma response’ that is needlessly pathologised, and whether the parents of autistic children are causing it with authoritarian approaches to parenting. So I’m not wading out into those waters just yet, as it is a weird space to exist in as both an autistic person and parent to an autistic child.
I will say though, that the understanding of what a ‘demand’ is seems to be somewhat misunderstood. It is not a parent standing there saying: ‘you must clean your room’ and the child saying ‘no’. It can mean the person isn’t able to initiate the things they want to do themselves, because of overwhelming anxiety. A demand can be anything from leaving the house to eating, sleeping, playing, walking, and talking. And for me, reading the particulars has given me the same lightbulb moment that reading about late-diagnosed autistic women did before I knew I was autistic. So I will keep reading, and supporting my kid in our gentle, ND-affirming household, and talking with other people navigating this space.
Scratch Pad
Anna: This scratch pad is an excerpt from an unpublished, and unlikely to ever be published, magical realist novella of mine. To set the scene: Accompanied by her elderly friend Grace, she finds her mother frozen in the ice near Norway.
‘Mum!’ I call out, slipping and clambering on all fours to her iceberg. Grace sits calmly on her suitcase. This is my task.
‘Mum, I’m here, I’m sorry I took so long.’ I can’t pull her from the sea, but the waves leave us unbattered. My hands slip over the smooth glassy surface that holds her face in the same disbelieving anguish she wore the day I left.
Taking in the arctic air, thin but clear, I let out a gentle flame to melt my mother. Like a cat licking her wounded kitten, I liquefy layer by layer, careful not to scold her flesh. Eventually, I sit with her cradled against my breast, rocking slowly.
‘I’m here now, we’re okay. You’re okay.’ I mumble useless words. Her body absorbs my warmth and starts to pulse. Her skin blushes, and with a gasp her eyes fling open.
‘Mum? Mum, can you hear me?’ Her eyes are empty.
‘M..m...mum?’ She stammers.
‘No, you’re my mum. Don’t you remember me?’ There’s no fire. She has no flame, but no smoke either. She has nothing. I call to Grace, ‘what do I do now?’ My pleading voice carried on the wind.‘Is she not there, duck? You’ll have to choose. We can leave her here, or take her away. Either way, she may be gone.’
‘I’ve come so far.’ I whisper into mum’s ear. ‘Why aren’t you here? You’re supposed to come with me, be with me.’ My tears flood into the sea and swim away as silvery fish. ‘I’m not supposed to be alone anymore.’
She doesn’t move, doesn’t comfort me, or tell me I’ve done well to survive all this time. That she’s sorry about the smoke. That she wishes she’d protected the girls. Her forehead is cold, and her eyes are empty. I sniff back my misery and roar into the sky with long red flames that make the rain sizzle and steam. Lava pours forth, and turns black around us. I continue to roar, letting my grief and despair flow out and create an island.
ohhhh PDA?? this is the first time i’m hearing of it but um, yes, it’s me 😅
Always love The Overshare hitting my inbox. So good to read about your work and also to not feel so alone. I am not a fan of leaving the house and over the past two years have developed quite an anxiety around it. So grateful to technology for helping with connectivity