The burden of trying to please Man

Mariana by Marie Spartali Stillman

"So what are you going to 'do'?"

A familiar question to stay-at-home daughters in or approaching their late teens, frequently put to them by well-meaning friends and acquaintances.

I'm not good at talking, even at the best of times, and when posed by the above question, I almost invariably end up a red-faced, stuttering mess! The truth is, I know exactly what I want to "do" - have a home and a family of my own! But you can't just say that. The simple desire to be a wife and mother isn't acceptable - you also have to have some sort of a career, even if said "career" is just a farce, a pretext.

***

Family friend: "So you've finished school?"

Me: "Um, er, sort of. I'm still doing a bit of studying, and always reading, so I guess I'm still learning, you know, even if I have essentially finished school," *nervous laugh*.

FF: "Okay, so are you going to uni?"

Me: "Um, ah, well, not planning to at this stage. . . but there are lots of options available these days - for doing courses and uni degrees at home, by correspondence - especially with the internet, you know. . ."

FF: "Mm-hm, yeah that's true. So - have you decided what you're going to do yet?"

Me: "Um, ah, well. . ." *stutters and stammers, eventually subsiding to red-faced silence*.

A couple of hours later:

Me: Despairingly wonders what this person must think of me. Only losers stay at home with their parents after they've completed school, without going to university, or going to work, or going somewhere and doing something, right?

***

How do I convey to that person that I am busy, I am happy? I am learning and - I hope - contributing? I may be at home almost all the time, but I am not just sitting around at home doing nothing! I am (I pray) learning and maturing a little more everyday; and I am a contributing member of this mini-community of sorts, called a family?

But I can't seem to help it, I always find myself trying to fight back the insecurity and the doubts that gnaw at me because I am endeavouring to follow a different path than the world's way. Nearly every time someone asks "the question", I find myself battling all those doubts, all over again.

*Sighs*. . . Anyway, the whole point of this post is that last night, as I lay in bed, I was thinking about all this, and feeling terribly weighed down by it all. Then it hit me: Elise, you're worrying so much about what other people think of you! About what the world thinks of you! Stop worrying about something so stupid! God loves you and accepts you just as you are, so you don't need to worry about all this. You don't need to try to "prove" that you are mature or intelligent or an adult by going to university or pursuing a career. As long as your heart and your motives are pure in God's sight, you have nothing to worry about!

And it was amazing - I felt the weight lift right off me! I felt so free and happy.

Now if I can just keep that in mind (God loves and accepts you, who cares what the world thinks?) over the coming months and years - if I can only bear that in mind next time someone asks me "the question"!

I know quite a few of my readers are stay-at-home daughters - any hints or suggestions as to how to deal with those inevitable questions?

BTW, I am SO GRATEFUL for the internet as a means to "meet" and be friends with other young women who are in the same boat as I am - being a SAH daughter can seem a lonely path at times, it's so counter-cultural!

The quest for beauty

Those arched, feminine eyebrows! A Victorian Angelina Jolie? Pavonia by Lord Frederic Leighton

What is beauty? How do you define it?

Since the beginning of mankind, womankind has been obsessed with the pursuit of superficial beauty. A rare few have had the wisdom to pursue inner beauty instead of or in addition to this. Contrary to popular belief, I don't think the desperate pursuit of physical beauty is always vanity-related. Sure, it can often spring from a selfish, narcissistic character - but I don't think it's as simple as that.

Who doesn't love beautiful things? Who isn't a passionate admirer of beauty? It could be in a landscape, a ray of light, a painting, a flower, a strain of music, a pretty girl. Whether it's a stunning landscape or a stunning woman, the general reaction is to stare dumbstruck for a few moments. :-) There are echoes of the Creator in all of this - both in the existence of beautiful things, and in our ability to admire those aforesaid things. We are made in His image. Do you think a frog takes any particular joy in looking at a waterlily covered in dewdrops, or a delicate spray of ferns? Only humans have the ability to recognise and appreciate beauty.

Ancient Beauty: the famous bust of Queen Nefertiti

Does anyone remember this post I wrote a few months ago? The gist of it was that I sometimes get an odd, depressed feeling when I see the same old shabby houses in a shabby corner of town, and there is absolutely nothing I can do to "beautify" them! I think the same can be true of our attitude toward our bodies. We see some "flaw", some (in our opinion) ugly feature that needs to be fixed or covered up! We all tend to turn up our noses in disdain at the mere mention of plastic surgery, but I think I can partly understand why plastic surgery can be so addictive for some women (or men, in some cases!). The possibility of correcting something "wrong" with your appearance (bear in mind that showing any sign of ageing is seen as seriously "wrong" in our culture,) must be very tempting, and once you start, I can understand that it would be hard to stop - and hard to know when to stop.

~~~~~

Speaking as a woman, I can say that a major motivator for women in trying to keep up an attractive appearance is to bring pleasure to others, not just to feel good about yourself or puffing up your vanity. If you're married, you want to look good for your husband, and if you're single, you want to look pleasant and pretty - but hopefully without the intention of drawing inappropriate attention to your body. Modesty really is a heart issue. If you seek all your self-worth through the admiration of others, there's obviously a problem somewhere! But do you get what I'm trying to say? The desire to make yourself look pleasant is not necessarily vanity-related. I'm not sure if this is all making sense, so I'll move on. . . 

Victorian Beauty: Princess Albert de Broglie by Ingres

I don't think it's wrong to dress attractively (but modestly, please!), to style your hair, or wear makeup (though I don't wear it myself). By all means, make the most of what you've got. But don't ever forget about the beauty of the human spirit. Don't forget about cultivating inner peace and beautiful character traits. If you're stressed, angry, complaining, and discontented on the inside, it will show. Equally so, if you're contented, at peace, and happy on the inside, it will show. If you cherish a genuine love and concern for the people around you, that will make you more beautiful than anything else could: even if you feel you are UGLY (and personally I'm convinced that very, very few people are genuinely "ugly" - there's always some good feature or other!), by the time someone has known you for 30 seconds, in their eyes you will be one of the most beautiful people they know. Have you ever noticed that you practically never think about whether your parents or other close family members or friends are "ugly"? Your mum and dad have (I pray!) cared for you and loved you to the best of their ability, and to you, what they look like on the outside doesn't matter in the least.

This is all a major challenge for myself, too!! Oh well. . . over the course of my lifetime I can at least endeavour to live up to some of my fine words voiced in the above paragraph. . . 

21st century Beauty (in this instance, mimicking Renaissance beauty) - British model Lily Cole

I don't want to get legalistic about these things - each woman must act according to her own personal convictions - but what are your thoughts on cosmetic surgery? Botox injections? Colouring your hair? Are you okay with some or all of these things? Or do you perhaps even think it is morally questionable to alter your appearance in such a way - to tamper, as it were, with the way God has made you?

Thoughts?

Getting used to a sometimes un-beautiful world

I live in a medium-sized town in regional New South Wales, Australia. In some ways it's quite a lovely town - many of the streets are lined with trees, there are quite a few graceful old buildings around town (well, "old" by Australian standards. . . ). And yet, like any other town, there are areas that are relatively bare and ugly. As we drive or walk along some of these streets, I often wish that it was in my power to beautify the surrounding neighbourhood. - Planting trees everywhere to cover up the run-down old fibro houses, filling the place with lush green growth. Digging up the patchy brown lawns and planting vegetable gardens, giving the whole area an aura of life and productivity. 

Then I fall back to earth.

Fast-forward a few weeks: we'll drive past the same houses. Same bare, brown "gardens" that don't deserve the word. Same fibro houses, desperately wanting a good paint job. And I get so frustrated!

I do love beauty and beautiful things, and when I see the same old uninspiring neighbourhood or landscape again and again, it really gets me down! I just want to do something about it! Do something to make the world a more beautiful place.

It reminds me of a time - I would have been about 12 - when I was reading an article in an old National Geographic. It was about Mexico City, and its problems with pollution and overcrowding. I felt a very strong urge to rebuild all of Mexico City. Sure, if I had a few trillion dollars to spare, that might be a nice little project for me to work on.

Anyways. Have any of you ever felt that way? Or is it just me?

Note: The photo isn't a picture of any house in our neighbourhood - it's just a random pic I got off the internet. ;-)

Current Mood: Thoughtful

Crying and kissing

 
Last night I was lying awake in bed, when I suddenly got it into my head to see if I could cry - I mean just cry, with no provocation or reason. I discovered that it is in fact quite easy to simulate 'heartbroken' sobbing - but try as I might, I couldn't squeeze out a proper tear, though I fancy I did manage to get my nose and eyes quite red and puffy. Perhaps, next time, if I keep practising, I'll be able to produce the obligatory salty drop or two.

Ah, the things that you dream up whilst lying awake, when it's well past your bed-time. . . 

Do you know, when I was little, I always assumed that actors in movies had to use some sort of teargas or something to make their eyes water for crying scenes. It wasn't until I was older when I realised that, no, those are real tears - they really are crying, or pretending to.

Also, for kissing scenes, I thought that movie-makers would have to use special effects to make it look like a couple were kissing, when in fact they weren't. Because of course, you couldn't kiss someone unless you were married to that person! or so I believed. :-) Sometime, years later, I finally figured out that there were no special effects or computer tricks involved. I suppose my first thought would have been "Ewww!". . . 

By the way - last night, after my fake crying episode, when I finally got to sleep, I dreamt that a friend of mine had died, and I was at their funeral. No kidding!

~Elise

Current Mood: Dorky

Jazzing up my blog

Young Woman in Boat, by James Jacques-Joseph Tissot -- from ArtMagick.com [Don't you just love the little dog in this picture!]

So, I'm kind of getting bored with my generic blogger blog background. . . any of you have any tips for adding a bit of flair to my blog? Some of you use pre-made blog backgrounds - I've had bit of a look on "The Cutest Blog on the Block" - they've got some gorgeous designs, but somehow, none of them seemed "right" for my blog. You see, I like the paintings and pictures in my posts to take centre stage - colourful, detailed backgrounds may look nice but they might draw attention away from the pictures. I don't want anything too crowded or busy -- very simple but also pretty and elegant is what I'm after, I guess.

Some of you design your own blog backgrounds. How do you do it? What's involved with making your own blog design?

I suppose something quick and easy I could do would be to find a picture and add to my blog title at the top of this page. But first I'd have to find the right picture. . . 

Any of you have any thoughts? Ideas? Suggestions?

Current Mood: Creative

Beautiful trees

Photo from Gardening Australia

Spring has sprung; indeed the weather is already uncomfortably warm sometimes, and it will very soon be summer. . .

Some of my favourite flowering trees are currently in full bloom. The wonderfully fragrant Native Frangipani (above), of which we are blessed to have 3 in our neighbourhood - one that is very large, one that is very small, and one that is somewhere in the middle. All of them are covered in gorgeous creamy flowers at the moment.

Now, this is possibly my favourite tree - the silky oak (above). It's not an oak at all, I believe they're  called silky oaks because of the beautiful timber they produce. There you go, a tree that is beautiful on the inside and the outside!

There are silky oak trees everywhere where I live, in town, and all over the countryside, but you don't really notice them until they start to bloom in October.

None of the photos I've got here really do them justice - they're such a bright, vivid shade of orangey-gold. 

Photo from EyeFetch.com

They are beautiful from a distance or at close hand. The foliage is silvery and fern-like, and the flowers are - interesting. Silky oaks are actually a  species of grevillea, but you don't realise it until you  examine them closely.

Orange is not my favourite colour - blue is! So why are silky oaks my favourite trees? I honestly have no idea. I don't know what it is -their brightness and vivacity, their curious mixture of ruggedness and grace. . . I'm not sure what it is in them that so captures my attention, all I know is that they're beautiful and I love looking at them. . . :-)

Click here for more gorgeous photos of these trees.

And of course jacarandas. . . jacarandas are absolutely beautiful, but I'm  afraid I'm a bit sick of them at the moment. I know I'm not being fair  on the poor trees, but I've just had enough purple for now.

Maybe I'm just a bit grumpy tonight, because it's impossible to deny that they are lovely trees. . .

What's happening in our corner of the globe

Study for The Flowerpicker, by John William Waterhouse, courtesy of ArtMagick.com

1. Springtime has arrived! This past week or so, the weather has started to warm up in earnest. The nights are growing balmy, and some days are almost too warm already. The pink jasmine is in full bloom, the wisteria starting to bloom, there are flower buds on the avocado tree, and tiny leaves on the big old frangipani. My tomato seedlings are growing, and there's a little bunch of bananas downstairs that will hopefully start to ripen soon. . .

My energetic younger siblings have braved the freezing waters of our swimming pool - at least I think it's freezing, they assure me that it's "actually quite warm once you get used to it," - I'm happy to just take their word for it.

With the warmer weather comes thunderstorms - destructive ones, sometimes. We had a hailstorm a few days ago. Thankfully there was no major damage other than the hundreds of tiny dimples on our family vehicle. . . :-(

2. There's been a flurry of parcel deliveries to our house this week - most of them mine. . . one DVD (Fishpond), two music Cds (eBay), three books and another music Cd (Fishpond again), a brand new set of fantastic Sennheiser headphones - yippee! (eBay again), another music Cd (you guessed it - eBay), and today another book from eBay. I'm determined to have a break now and save for a while - no more eBaying for you, young lady!

The biggest parcel is yet to arrive. . . It's a laptop! For me! I can't believe it. . . I'm so thrilled. . .

3. My sister entered a colouring in competition, and ended up winning a family pass to go see WALL - E, the latest film from Pixar. You can imagine the excitement at our place when we first heard the news. . . Well done little sister! I'm so proud of you! :-) ;-)

4. Baby actually has two teeth! She's so adorable - we all love her to pieces, I don't know how she manages to put up with all the hugs and kisses and general smothering that she gets from us.

5. I have two new tops for summer. One is a cotton crinkle top, in a green-grey-brown pattern, which might sound rather drab, but it suits me very well. (Hope that doesn't mean I'm drab or boring! I'm sure there are other people around who love the colour grey - a nice, silvery grey can be very beautiful.) The other top is a very pretty, very comfortable black t-shirt.

6. The Western Bulldogs play against Geelong in the first preliminary final tomorrow night. If the Bulldogs win, they'll go through to the grand final, for the first time in since 1961. GO BULLDOGS!!!

7. We've spotted many interesting birds from our backyard recently. Earlier today there was a big flock of black cockatoos flying through the neighbourhood, making their odd piercing calls. We've also seen several flocks of corellas, which we don't normally see much of around here. Also, this afternoon there was a Collared Sparrowhawk sitting on the lawn in our neighbour's backyard eating a pigeon. . . charming, I know.

So you see, life is never boring around here.

Trees

Tomorrow there will be some council workers coming to cut down several trees in our backyard. It's unavoidable really - they need to access some sewage pipes that run underground near our back fence.

I went down with my baby sister this afternoon to say goodbye. We'd been sitting down together on the lounge for a while. She kept looking past me, through the window at the trees bending in the breeze. So I carried her out to the garden. We went to the biggest tree first - she touched the rough brown bark and we looked up at the mighty branches above us. Then the neighbour's dogs started yapping at us, so we moved on. We both smelled the fragrant mandarin leaves, then baby looked up at the lovely frangipani tree with her big blue eyes. Its branches are bare and silvery and smooth at this time of the year. When she is older she won't remember the trees - she won't remember the way our garden looks now.

It's hard saying goodbye, but it is also beautiful in a way. I'm so sad to lose them. I wish no living things had to die, but it seems we are all destined to die - people, trees, animals large and small.

The big tree was already starting to die, the frangipani was getting older, and the mandarin tree never bore much fruit. But ultimately, it didn't matter whether or not they were fruitful and functional and did just what we wanted them to do. Their purpose was to bring glory to their Maker: to say "Look at me - I am unique, I am special - I have my own distinct personality, I am beautiful in my own way, and I am a reflection of the might and beauty of my Maker." If any tree inspires someone - even if it be only one person - to turn his or her thoughts towards our Lord, then its life was not wasted.

For everything there is a purpose - even trees.