Learning to be Hopeful Again

Some ancient civilisations describe time as a spiral, within which we are destined to keep coming back to the same hurdles and challenges, over and over again, until we overcome them. And the closer we come to the end of our lives, the further we head into the heart of it all, the more often we are faced by the same situation. Perhaps it’s true, because here I am again; a different partner, a changed and expanded family, another little hobby farm filled with more hopes and plans than actual animals or plants. Today I am a teacher, no longer a journalist. After 20 years I gave up the career I’ve always loved, always believed in, because suddenly with a family of teenagers almost ready to fly from the nest I discovered I was hatching a new addition to our little clan. A 70-hour-a-week career wasn’t going to cut it, not if I wanted to be a good parent to toddlers and teenagers. And I’ve only ever wanted to be a good parent. Not the other kind. So, with a brand-new baby on my knee, I went back to school. Learning by laptop from a university a state away, all with an eye to being home on holidays and making a government wage. And in the middle of all my planning and worrying for the future something I couldn’t plan for, happened. An old friend, turned into a new partner. And an old dream became a new dream. A shared dream. Here we are now, moving into another ramshackle farm house bought for the sake of the view and the rolling space around it. This little corner of a once-greater property originally belonged to MyMan’s parents in the 80s. They started their own family here, after his father had returned from the Vietnam War, before the droughts came and they sold up. But they lived here long enough to give it a name – EastWinds. MyMan brought me here one day, to show me where he’d lived as a child, the route he’d cycled down as a toddler to his neighbours’ property. We stood there, looking out to the sea on one side and the hills on the other thinking what a wonderful place to build the enormous home we’d imagined for our combined seven children…and on a whim he picked up his phone and called the owner. We’re now in the process of subdividing the land and saving for the home we’ll build on it. My little house, the one I bought for myself and never quite did anything with while I worked every day and most nights holding it all together and paying the bills, will be plastered and plumbed back up in the simplest way for rental, so that I can finally have that hobby farm I hoped for. MyMan promises me fruit trees and chickens and laughs at my plans for alpacas. My teen son – who was the same age his toddler brother is now when he used to collect eggs each morning and pour out the homebrew dregs into yoghurt containers for invading earwigs – has been busy with his one-day Step-Dad pulling down old fences, chopping up rotten trees, collecting scrap metal and learning to drive at the property. His big sister is more doubtful, she worries that this hobby farm dream will end like the other so she won’t get her hopes up. And frankly, she’s not that keen on dealing with spiders and rotten floorboards and musty rooms all over again if it’s not going to end better than it did last time. But she can’t help joining in the game. Remembering the best things about the old house and planning the same for the baby – trees to climb and cubbyhouses beneath, sandpits and fresh veggies, not to mention MyMan’s promise of motorbikes and (eventually) a home to be proud of, a home fit for entertaining her many friends and scattered family. For me, it’s hard to be hopeful. Hard to keep in mind that this is a different future, with a different kind of man, and it will end…or not end…differently. MyMan too, finds it hard not to be cynical, to believe in a new beginning. But I was never meant to be a pessimist. I’m not built that way. And I don’t want my kids to think that they shouldn’t hope for good things. We’ve worked hard, we’ve got through the rough times, and our family is big and loud and wonderful. One day (not too soon kids) I’ll have grandchildren and they’ll visit us at East Winds and look out at the view, collect the eggs every morning and eat apricots and oranges when they come into season, they’ll pat the old parti-eyed husky and tug the tail of the fluffy ginger farm Tom…marveling at my alpacas and my mis-matched multi-coloured hens. This will be the place for family Christmases; for summer holidays with Nanna and Pop; they’ll talk about how yellow the egg yolks are and how big the peaches grow; they’ll dig in the garden with Pop and sit around a fire at night; eat too much and stay up too late. That’s what I’ll think about while I’m walking over rippled wooden floors and chasing mice out of the lopsided kitchen (oh, mice again…I’m not looking forward to that); renting my beloved little home out to hordes of 20-somethings to save money for the ‘one-day’ house.