#reflections

The Indian Ocean

I’m from W.A. That’s Western Australia, in Australia. We have the largest coastline on the Australian Continent.

I’ve never been to the topmost part of Western Australia. I’ve only been as far up the coast as Kalbarri, which, when one was born in the southernmost corner of Western Australia, a reasonable way. People I’ve worked with and are friends with have lived or are living in those higher regions of W.A, nonetheless, and the countryside is completely different to where I currently reside.

You don’t hear much about the Indian Ocean. People don’t often write stories about it, or name things after it, or even wonder where it’s there half the time, despite it being the third largest ocean in the world (according to Google). That’s okay. Despite that it still exists, as do all the islands and continents whose coastlines are met by its waters.

The countries surrounding the Indian Ocean speak many different languages besides English, and I don’t think I could name them all. But, when we were kids at school, all those years and years back, we were told the most spoken languages (other than English) at that time were French, German, and Italian. At my high school (and primary school) down on the south coast, I learnt French. Spanish, despite its popularity, was not an option here.

When one wanders up the Western Australian coastline on Google Maps, or Google Earth and looks at the names of towns, and islands, one may suggest perhaps Dutch should have been offered as a language as well. I don’t remember it being offered as a language at my school. Maybe it was at others.

You don’t hear much about the Indian Ocean or Western Australia in history either. There are far more exciting topics to discuss — like where Chris Columbus went, or who landed in New Plymouth, and how many different sizes of barleycorn there might be if one looked at them closely. I suppose it’s because, when all those really early explorers looked at our coastline they thought to themselves, ‘You know what, this place doesn’t look very friendly. I think we’ll head back home.’

Everyone is affected by the area they grew up in, and the regions they have resided in for most of their lives. So, I guess I’m just looking at a world map from my perspective, (and possibly the perspective of many West Australians) not other people’s, which is possibly why I wrote this short piece today.

Thanks for reading. Don’t get stranded on any reefs. We have a few.

Rising of the Sun

I will show you this story in his true form, for this is who he is.

Let me guide through the long grass. Can you see him up ahead? This is my Brother. He waits for the sun to rise between the two hills, and he has been waiting for a very long time for his sister to come home to him.

I am here. Do you wish to move forwards with me, one by my side? For he is not for you. You are very brave, yes. My brother is not interested in doing the wrong thing. He is here for protection, and I need to help him home today. We need to watch the sun rise together.

Brother, please be patient.

He bows his head as he waits ahead. His shoulders are bunched, but he takes a breath and rests his arms on his knees.

”Don’t you dare make me look back there,” he whispers fiercely to me, and I grin, for this is directed to me, not the one by my side.

‘She does not understand you yet, brother. She has not come to speak of the timeless love to you. Not yet. But, she tells me she is willing to listen. It will help her craft.’

Brother two is taking me aside, and not in an unkind way. What you must understand is that he is many to me, as I am many to him, and I know which one has taken his place on the way to him.

‘I do not want to get in the way,’ this one whispers, and he is frightened.

‘You do not get in the way. For me, this has always been my brother, the other half of my soul. The one I love in a different way is sleeping. Do you understand?’

This tall one is sad, but it is not his time.

‘Thank you,’ he says. ‘I see now you are waking my brother from the sleep of the guilty and he was not taking care of himself.’

‘Not the guilty one, either,’ I say to him. ‘Please get out of my way. I need to watch the dawn with my brother. He was silenced for too long, through no choice of his own, and that time has passed now.’

My brother looks over his shoulder from up ahead.

‘Hurry,’ he whispers. ‘Dawn is coming.’

So I say to the young one. ‘You must understand. This is my brother. He can give you friendship, sweet girl, but that is all he gives you. You may sing to him, but this man is not for you. I understood this from the first time I came home to my brother. He is your rising song now, too, but it may take you some time to learn him.’

I lean down now, because my brother is on the grass in front of me, and I kiss the top of his head. He is very clever, and very swift, and is not afraid to let other men make decisions.

‘It’s time to watch the dawn,’ we say, because the first bird is singing.

‘Which bird do you hear,’ he asks, but he has heard it too.

They do not know which bird it is, and it does not matter to me and my brother. This is the right time of year for these birds, right now, and I must go outside to watch the dawn.

‘Do you want to go home now, little one,’ I ask the small child, for my brother is ready to raise himself up.

‘I do not know the home of this man or woman is,’ the little one replies. ‘Are they people, or lords, or ladies, or?’

‘They are simply people, and they are lovely people. They have kept you safe for far too long, and it is time to leave these people alone.’

‘I never disturbed them. I just watched and waited and left them all alone. Have I been so bad?’ The little one is sad now, but she/he never really understood. ‘I haven’t been bad, I just wanted to know what they did there.’

My brother, who was silenced for far too long, lifts his head. ‘No,’ he says, and it is this finality that has brought us here. ‘No. I can hold them back for as long as you require, my sister, but I will not allow them to destroy our peace of mind. I am here to take away the darkness and bring them into the light. I am here to share the dawn with my sister, who has helped me for far too long, and I am strong enough now to show these people the way to go home. They cannot have our flowers, they cannot have our children, they certainly cannot steal our ladybugs/ladybirds away, and it took me far too long to realise what they were trying to do to us, my sister, and they will never, ever keep us from telling the truth.’

The rising of the sun is displayed on our old hats. It is an Australian signaller who brought us to this point, and it is an Australian soldier who will bring us to safety. Always.

And, as always, our brothers sit between the two hills, and behind the hills, and on the ridges, and down in the gullies, and sometimes our sisters do too, and we will never forget the sound of our own, beautiful, National Anthem.

‘Thank you,’ my silenced brother says, and he says it softly, and he is never afraid to cry.

‘Pull your hat down on the eastern side, sis, and the sun will not get in your eyes.’

Very Large Snakes.

Early 1990’s – Albany, Western Australia.

The walk back from the pub that night was never going to be fun. I had a long way to go. Having the little vermin off the wheat ship following me was even less fun.

The yank had stepped down from the side of the shopping centre, down from the light, and onto the semi darkened street.

‘Are you okay?’ He asked. He could see this little bastard just wouldn’t go away, and didn’t like taking no for an answer. He may also have noticed I was beginning to size the little creep up, because, although I didn’t want to, I was going to have to kick the cunt in the nuts if he didn’t back off.

‘I’ll be okay,’ I said. 

‘You said we could have one beer together,’ the little prick of a man said.

‘Changed my mind,’ I said. Now, the state of mind I was in wasn’t angry, and it wasn’t sad, it was just more of a “I don’t want to have to hurt this guy just because he’s an idiot.” Regretful, I suppose. Yeah, regretful.

He kept following me though, trying to keep up, pleading with me. I kept saying no, but he wasn’t listening. Seems to be a thing over where he came from. They don’t take no for an answer over there.

Now, I could run, I was taller, and I don’t mind walking in the dark either. I knew where I was going, which helped. This little fuck had no idea.

It was about halfway along the avenue beside the oval where this little wheat ship sailor noticed there wasn’t gonna be any more lights.

‘How far your place is?’ He may have been thinking it was closer. I hadn’t lied to him. He was wrong in thinking it wasn’t as far as I said it was, and I was most definitely right.

‘We’re only half way, so I suggest you turn back.’

‘I just wanted to drink beer with you.’

‘Yeah I don’t think so mate.’ I am pretty sure he had begun to read my face now. It would be easy to lose this fucker in the dark. I think he had only just begun to realise the dark was what we’d be walking in if he kept on following me.

He gave up. There was no winning for this one. No winning at all. I won, and if you wanna know why, it’s because I was prepared to keep going. I knew where I was, I knew my location, and I was gonna keep moving until I got home.

My home, and this breed of man’s home were in two very different directions. Mine was several more k’s in the dark, his was back on a grain ship, which, if he continued to follow me, was something he would possibly never get back to and see the light of day again.

That is the entire point. It’s not about keeping up with the Joneses. It’s not about waiting for the sun to come up either.

It’s whether you are afraid of walking in the dark.

I’m not.

Experiences, Expectations, and Truths.

Not everywhere is the same. Not everyone is the same. One person’s self-improvement is not necessarily someone else’s.

To walk into a land not your own and see it as an adult with a fixed mind, rather than walking through it is a child, a teenager and someone from a completely different area who wishes to learn the local ways, are two very different things. To grow up with an understanding of the land itself, by walking with her, smelling her, growing with her, learning from her, and living with her, is very different from someone coming into it with blinkers on and not understanding, from their own guilt of being “privileged”, what it’s all about.

When we say, ‘Speak for me, for I cannot speak for myself,’ it comes from a place where people have adapted and changed, yet have a few people around them with much louder voices who say, ‘I have changed, yes, but I also take advantage of a system who sees me as someone who needs help, when I actually don’t.’ When a person says, speak for me, please, they are asking from their heart for someone else to say, “This is how my friend feels.” They don’t want bullshit, they don’t want someone yacking on about crap, they just want someone in their corner.

There are many people here in WA who are proud of what they have achieved through their own hard work, despite all the bullshit they get thrown at them. There have been many issues in the past, yes, but that is through individual grievances, not group ones.

The story and the dreaming is still very much alive. It’s a pity many people who do not live out in the country do not understand her history, and have lost their way. It’s disturbing. There aren’t enough people to explain exactly how disturbing it is, and how much is being lost through not being connected. Trying to understand something which is completely foreign to oneself, is not the same as understanding through experience. Making up modern yarns about something and passing it off as truth, when there are already traditional, well-documented stories, is not something that’s meant to be done. This is where we start to lose real history.

Understanding the difference between fiction and reality can be very difficult for some people. It can be even more difficult for people with an agenda to fix things that don’t need fixing, and to not fix things which are in dire need of fixing.

If one went back to the reality of “tribal” lore, for those who don’t know what that means, over here in W.A it was pretty bloody nasty. Those who did the wrong thing were basically “evicted” from their camp, and if they kept coming back, they were chased off. Those who did things a lot worse than just “the wrong thing”, suffered a fate far worse than simply being killed. To these people, the nutters, the killers, and the ones who interfered with children, looking to be convicted of a felony by “white-man’s law” seemed a lot more pleasant than getting speared.

“White man’s privilege” is exactly what the bad ones wanted. Understanding this is possibly the most important thing you will learn today. A few have lost their way due to interference from well-meaning people who do not understand how things work within a community. What I, and those who walk with me, are trying to do — is teach you a little bit about facts right here, and right now. We don’t do this through trying to be mean, or trying to have “out-loud” conversations, we do this carefully. Sometimes it’s hard to get voices heard, and sometimes it’s difficult to make people understand, so when we tell you stories, it’s the meaning behind the story that’s important, not the story itself.

Here the words are different. Here, still water with hidden logs and vast amounts of mud and muck and things one can get stuck in are places to avoid rather than dive into, and it is better to wait until the rains come before we start talking about that — this is what the real dreamtime stories were all about.

Teach your kids to be safe.

Let me tell ya a little bit about…

strength in numbers, and being taken advantage of.

Ya see, people have tried to take advantage of me a number of times. I have also been threatened by idiots at my former place of work a number of times. Because I worked alone a hell of a lot, I had to learn to stick up for myself. Actually, that’s a lie. I already knew how to look out for myself, and I knew all the stupid, horrible things people would do because they, for some reason, even though they had no idea what the f*** they were doing, thought they could do whatever the f*ck they liked.

They still think they can do whatever the f*ck they like.

This is where I start to get, not mad, not irate, but incredibly f*cking angry. I believe it’s called rage.

I think the angriest I got, was when people did not understand, nor refused to try to understand, that I am also a writer. So, what they’re endeavouring to do now, knowing I’m a writer (and a published author of other books unrelated to the other types of writing I’ve done over the years), is steal my stuff and use it for themselves.

I have a number of extremely succinct words for these types of people. Aside from the fact they think they can do whatever the f*ck they like, they are not particularly bright, in my humble opinion.

Incredibly, people also like to believe other things that are distinctly untrue, circulating around the internet. Things that have come out of other people’s books, and other people’s true stories that certain people have used for themselves. It’s kind of sucky.

My stories, certainly the ones about my family, my husband etc, are actually true. The others may have a lot of truth in them if you look very carefully, but, and here we get to the sticky bit, certain people are a tad naive, easily led, and feed off other people’s misery just for the hell of it.

I had another WordPress site quite some time ago. In it were stories about all sorts of things related to myself, and other people. Stories about wolves, and sheep, about smiles and how much one really needs to pull up a smile sometimes because someone else wants ya to. Stories about eight hours, and the fact that when one is a parent and a wife, one needs to extend one’s own eight hours and add everyone else’s eight hours in there as well.

Now, I know certain people may not believe this, and that’s okay too, but sometimes, just sometimes there are actually nice people out there who may very well have experienced something very similar to myself. Those people may not be in quite the right position to say something, due to “conflicts of interest” in regards to the type of work they do, and the fact they need to make a living. But, it does not give people the right to freely access my writing, or the kind of writing I do.

What they can do, is read this. I do not give people permission to access my work, and never have. I have said, however, if they wished to use certain ideas within my work to help them write their own things, then that’s fine, but that does not include accessing my work illegally. Unfortunately, when someone, not myself, accesses certain things of mine “freely” and “Illegally”, bad things start to happen… And not always to me and mine.

I don’t go to gyms. I can’t afford it. I’ve never gone to a gym. I don’t talk to people who are not my friends very often, unless I get the impression there is something very wrong. When I was working in the fuel industry, for example, the longest conversation I would have with a customer was not particularly long at all. Oh, I had a lot of disagreements with customers, because after all what the hell would I know, I only worked in a servo. Obviously I had never done anything else with my life, aside from, you know, get married and have kids (which is certainly nothing to be ashamed of). My long working life, training, and life experience in general could not in the least have anything to do with the fact I knew what the hell I was talking about.

When I see people have stolen certain photographs from other people’s facebook pages to perhaps boost their own confidence, and when I see certain people think there must be something wrong with someone who is quite comfortable in their own skin, I truly start to wonder if those few, unreliable sources might have something a little skewiff within themselves.

Still, there isn’t much I can do about that, except perhaps try to teach those people about what life is really like. It’s not all romance and flowers. It’s not all hearts and bunnies, and if you knew a little something about where I got the term “hearts and bunnies”, you might think a little deeper about that too. It’s not who I am personally, mind you, but it is certainly a historical fact, not fiction.

Perhaps, some other people might want to learn more about those certain, very important things and stop giving the rest of us a hard f*cking time.

You’re welcome.

The Challenge

I was employed in a roadhouse, many years ago, and had just returned to work. I’d suffered quite a bad injury which had affected my left arm and hand, and I was learning/teaching myself how to get some strength back into it. Some things had to be done slightly differently.

We had a new staff member, an older lady who hadn’t worked for quite some time, and when we were busy I’d kinda take over for a while because I knew how to do things quicker, despite my injury. What I didn’t know, though, was that she had a son.

The first time I spotted him, he was crouched down and peering around the corner of the counter. As I found out later, he was pretending to hide from his mother, thinking she was the one sitting on a stool having a short break. Unfortunately for him, it wasn’t his mother, it was me. I raised an eyebrow at him and he stood up, his face quite red, and went and sat down, or moved away or something. I can’t quite remember. Perhaps he even left the building for a short while before re-entering with some other blokes. I am not really sure. It was a long time ago.

Anyway, I went back into the kitchen and said to the woman I was working with, ‘I think there might be some people here for you,’ as I’d figured out rather quickly from his body language it wasn’t me he was trying to surprise.

We both went out to the counter, where three of them now stood. A little bloke, another bloke, and the one who had been trying, not very well, to surprise his mother. Of course, I didn’t know it was his mother. No one had thought to tell me that.

So, when they left and we went back into the kitchen, I said to my fellow staff member, ‘Who’s the one with the nice arse?’

She thought I was talking about the other bloke, the one not her husband, and the one not her son, so she said another name to me, with a questioning tone behind it. We discussed what he looked like and I said…

‘Nah, not him, the younger one. The one wearing the footy shorts.’

‘Oh.’ She sounded quite surprised. ‘That’s my son.’ And, you know what, there might have been an exclamation mark in that sentence.

‘Oh is it?’ I said. ‘Well, he’s got a nice arse.’

After some thought on my behalf, and not in the least bit sorry about telling the woman her son had a delectable backside, I asked for a little bit more information.

‘Oh he’s very shy,’ she said. ‘He had a bad accident himself, and when he’s at home he doesn’t really go out much.’

‘He’s shy?’

‘Yes.’

‘Oh well, we can fix that,’ I said, and I wrote something on a piece of paper and gave it to his mother, before adding, ‘How old is he?’

He was around four years younger than me. Me, being the practical type, thought well, blokes are meant to die (not always) slightly earlier than their feminine counterparts, so if we got married (yes, I’m laughing) if we were lucky, we’d die around the same time. Now, you must remember this little piece here is a joke, and I do have quite a dark sense of humour, so please do not take that the wrong way.

On the piece of paper I had written my name and phone number, as ya do, but I had also written a short instruction of how he was going to pick me up on a certain day and take me to the movies.

‘I don’t think he’ll take you up on that,’ my fellow employee said, looking at the piece of paper. ‘He really is quite shy.’

‘Okay,’ I said, and added three more words.

‘Do you think that will work?’ she asked.

‘Of course it will,’ I said. ‘No one wants to be beaten by a girl.’

I was right. No bloke in his right mind would back out on a dare. Not one like that, anyway. His mother took the note home, handed it to him, he started laughing and not too much later he picked up the phone and gave me a call.

The rest is history. We were engaged eight months later. There is, of course, a lot more to this story but some things, I think, are nobody else’s business.

So, Brother

Are you willing to travel back to the land before Oz?

Are you willing to learn of the differences and sameness?

Are you willing to survive in the wilderness and discover something older than you? Much older, yes, and the true giver of life, because that is where she begins.

Let it rain, but let it be gentle. A cleansing. A new beginning. The smell is slightly different here, but the outcome after your wandering will be your choice alone.

Time looks to Nature and slowly replies. He thinks through these things, and slowly replies.

‘I have not been kind,’ he says. ‘You are right. This story, although highly amusing and slightly terrifying, and I know you are not pointing the finger at anyone in particular, is the one we should be paying for. I realise, this time, an apology will not suffice. Lead the way.’

The Discovery.

When one is not on foot, and the trees one is trying very hard to avoid are rather close together, trying to get from one place to the next, just to find the sandy track one has finally arrived at is in the wrong place, one might feel slightly peeved.

If it is in the middle of the night though, one might decide to grab the swag, remove one’s boots, and set up camp right there, in the middle of the track.

‘I’m not particularly fond of this spot,’ he said to his rather tall companion. ‘Can we not go on a little further?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she huffed. ‘I got you here in one piece, and if you want to find it, perhaps staying in one piece is a particularly good idea. Go to sleep, for God’s sake. I’ll film you tomorrow.’

‘Can’t we talk about it now?’ He scratched his beard. He’d never been particularly good at these things, but he knew, he just knew, if he could find the place where the drone had spotted that very interesting, very large, blinking whatever-it-was, his career would sky-rocket.

‘I know where you’re going with this,’ she replied. ‘But many people wouldn’t. There’s no reception there and I think it might take a few missed turnoffs just to reach the right place. According to the map, there’s a little inlet, tributary type thing just up the way a bit, so perhaps when it’s daylight and we can both see where we’re going, we’ll go and check it out.’

‘Excellent.’ He rubbed his hands together. ‘I think this would be much better than emptying sewerage tanks for a living.’

‘Yes well. In my experience, being behind the camera instead of in front of it, is what I’d rather do. But, you do you.’

So when we say you…

kill her, you save her arse every time.

This was today’s dream.

The small white bus was cross-axled in the road. On either side of the road was thick scrub and low trees. One side was quite steep, the other side, to our left, had a ditch. My copilot, a tall blonde fella, was doing his damndest to help me stop the bloody thing from falling backwards into that ditch. I didn’t tell him that side had a ditch, I knew it was there, and I was not going to let that bus fall into it. No fucking way.

‘Come on,’ I said. ‘You can do this mate. We don’t give in, and we don’t give up.’

‘I can’t hold it,’ he said, and I could see him straining to keep it on the track.

I got out and put my shoulder into that metal door and I pushed. ‘Come on. We’ve got this.’

He had the other side. If I didn’t change the position of the back of that stupid fucking bus, it, and all its belongings, were gonna end up in that fucking ditch. So, I pushed her over a few inches so that if she went backwards again, she’d back up into a tree instead. The leaves of the peppermint were hanging over the back of that bus, and I knew it was not going to be easy.

The nose of the bus began to tip down. I could hear her then, the little one. I could hear the agony in her voice.

“Ow, ow, ow, ow,’ she gasped and cried and it was the most awful sound I’d ever heard. But, the whole point was to get this thing up that fucking hill, because there was nowhere else for us to go. The road was washed out further ahead, we couldn’t turn her round, we could only get her to go up.

‘Put your back into it,’ I grunted. ‘It’s not gonna be easy but we’ll save the stupid woman one more bloody time because she needs to get this right.’

If she ever reads this, I hope she finally gets it right. It’s not about what shit looks like, or how it appears to be, it’s about how we are trying to get you to access something you do not think you have, and lady if you do not think you have emotions, that is why you feel so fucking awful in yourself right now.

‘Do we send this to her too,’ asked the little one who had survived the crash of that bus. He was a big lad now, and not a little girl, but it didn’t matter in the long run. In the long run, the whole point was to get that woman to safety, regardless of what she’d fucking done.

‘Nah, I don’t think so,’ I said. ‘She’ll figure it out.’

Sentinel

“Is it an African Elephant or an Indian Elephant?”

When I was a kid and interested in all sorts of things, I learnt a little bit about two types of elephants. Back then, the above is what they were called. I assume the names have changed now, but there was one very clear way to tell the difference.

The size of its ears.

The Indian elephant has much smaller ears.

I guess, if one looked at the map of the world online, or were lucky enough to own an Atlas, like we did when I was a kid, one would see that reflected in the size and shape of the two different areas. One is bigger, one is smaller. Unsurprisingly, as in the size of the elephants ears, India is smaller.

Now, as I was not born in either of those countries, rather one of quite a unique shape and size, I can’t compare my smaller ears to someone else’s. I also do not pretend to be African or Indian. I’m Australian.

I have a little voice in my head saying, ‘Just remember to keep calm.’ I’d say that would be a reflection of a certain amount of my heritage, but not all of it. You see, I’m not quite sure where the other side comes from.

As I have said many times in the past though, ‘Now is not the time to go jumping on your white charger and go galloping off into the sunset. People may get hurt.’ Life is a jigsaw, and sometimes parts of the jigsaw are missing. It is just the way of it.

When someone, or something, has passed away, it takes a very long time to get over it, if at all. The memories still linger, and occasionally we still allow ourselves to grieve. What we choose to do with those memories, though, is up to us. I don’t feel I need to repeat other things written in the past over and over again, if it has already been said.

What I do like to do, though, is have the opportunity to hone my skills. If that opportunity is taken away, the skills remain, not fresh, but struggling. Some people are particularly good at choosing words immediately. Some people like to carefully pick their words so the exact thoughts and ideas are presented in such a fashion no one gets the wrong idea.

I prefer to be methodical in my approach to things, personally. When I “fly by the seat of my pants”, I do it through using all my previous experiences. I do not believe I have ever jumped into something without first checking the depth.

Of course, when one is not given a depth, and one is pushed, issues arise. Problems can occur. Accidents can happen. ‘Sink, or swim’ is not an adage in my book. ‘Watch, and learn,’ is.

When I write, ‘The only way to do it is to fly,’ I am not referring to leaping off a cliff with no thought for my personal safety. I’m talking about hard work, and determination, and the wish to make sure things are done properly. If I were to ‘jump off a cliff’ in any way, shape, or form, I would be making sure I had numerous safety measures in place, I will have double-checked and triple checked things myself, and not simply relied on other people’s say so.

This is often not the case when one is surfing the internet.

There is so much misinformation on the internet, so many different points of view and unhinged, unreliable personal opinions not based on fact, it becomes extremely difficult for someone (or something) with no experience to navigate. What is truth? What is fact? Do I rely on the amount of things that say the same thing? Are they from different places in the world? Different sources? What does history say about these things?

If that isn’t working for me, the only thing I can rely upon is experience. If I am unable to have the experience, I then need to rely on a source who has had the experience. Then, I must assume they aren’t telling me lies. How do I do that? I don’t know. How do I discern the difference between fact and fiction for the fun of it? I don’t know.

So, what I do, is draw upon my own personal experience and hope that not too much has changed. I carefully weigh up my options, check and double check my safety gear, and then decide if I am going to fly. I will not let myself be weighed down by indecision once I have made this choice. My choice does not change. I see it through, because I am the one to have made this choice.

This month (February) has many meanings to many people. To myself personally, it is pretty important. A lot of very special things happened for myself and my family in February. I am here to make sure it all goes correctly, as much as I am able.

After all, as a mum, that’s my job.