The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea,
In a beautiful pea-green boat…
We pushed the boat off its moorings, skidded it on wet planks, rolled it on pipes, cajoled it, and a passer-by on the street helped us heave the last little bit. And all the while we told stories, with Gabe and Deena, the Owl and the Pussy-cat, and I always thought a kindergarten might be made special by its spaces, but of course it is the people, the educators, who inspire the children.
Here were two of them, on a Sunday morning, helping out.
The boat is falling apart. It needs fixing. Some TLC. They asked if I look after it for a while, resurrect it, and I am honoured to do so. Because there is something magical about this vessel, a half-boat, made of wood, used once at Luna Park, crawled over by so many children for so long at St Kilda Balaclava Kindergarten.
It is a boat that has taken so many on such wonderful journeys through the mind.
It has a whole other life ahead of it.
**
Recently, I installed another wicking bed garden box at the kindergarten, and the children helped out, a gaggle of them sat on the edge of the box as I worked, their legs inside, and I told them it was like a little boat, and they were on the high seas, on an adventure, and can you please pass me my hammer, and now BLOCK YOUR EARS, and it's time for a drink of water, where's your hat, and where are we sailing to?
One of the girls asked: "today, can you also please make us an aeroplane?”
And a boy called Yarra said: "And a believe station".
Yes, a believe station, they all screamed. A Believe Station!
What's a believe station?
They ran inside and returned with a drawing of one, and a map of how to find it, and as I was packing up tools they invited me to a meditation class, and I kicked off boots and lay on the floor, eyes closed, and was thankful for the cool air in their large hall, and the spinning ceiling fans, and the darkness, and to be laying on my back in the midday heat, and I could feel little bodies squirming near me, and opened my eyes and there's a girl peering over me, they are fascinated that I join in.
I do so because I am invited, and because it acknowledges the educators at the kindergarten, the work they do.
And because it's fun.
**
I’m soon to finish a backyard chook house I’ve built with Allison, a teacher, and a parent at the kindergarten, helped by two of her children.
We started the project on her first day of long service leave. I notched floor joists, put a hammer and chisel in her hand, gave instructions, said you probably didn’t expect to be doing this today.
“This is exactly what I needed to do,” she replied.
It is how I like to work: collaboratively, for-and-with-people, with recycled materials, using hand tools, and with an open heart. Everybody ought to chisel notches in wood at some point in their lives. See the grain, feel it.
It is mindful work, the materials and the process bringing with it a kind of spirituality.
Allison’s daughter draws the most free-spirited pictures of chickens.
Her children call out my name when I arrive for work.
She offers coffee.
All of it is wonderful and reminds of why I do what I do.
Because we are creating something, and caring, and a community of friendship is formed.
**
I haul the ‘love boat’ – that’s what the kindergarten calls it – to a friend’s farm in the Yarra Valley. On the drive, my boys ask why I have half-a-boat on the trailer.
We talk about Christmas.
I tell them I’ve decided this year all the gifts I’m giving are to be recycled or edible or experiential.
They say they are okay with this. They understand the reasons why. They know how troubled I am with the rampant consumerism of Christmas, its wastefulness, its over-abundance.
We all display our love in different ways. They know mine comes usually with handmade cards and in recycled wrapping paper.
Mr 11-year-old, in the front passenger seat, says he’d like to do a road trip to Queensland.
Feasible, I say.
Or a fishing trip.
Mr 8-year-old in the back seat likes the idea of a fishing trip.
We decide this is what we’ll do. Sometime next year. I’ll give them both a week off school, and we’ll go camping and fishing, just the three of us, take them someplace special, somewhere wild, and I know it’ll be a memory they’ll hold onto for all their days.
And a little wooden boat, it needs to come with us.
**
It’s a friend’s birthday party, and he’s a generous man, open-armed, full of curiosity, a crazy spirit, and we once shared a top-floor flat together on the crest of Richmond Hill, and with another friend backpacked down the Baja spit of Mexico, then jumped to South America, to Colombia, and climbed volcanoes along its spine, he can never stand still, and we’d take days off work and go fishing on the bay, or cross-country ski up Mount Stirling, or do overnight walks to the tip of Feathertop when the snow was still about, and all of us travelled to his wedding in South Africa many years back, because he inspires adventure, a thirst for life.
He and his wife said yes, of course, they’re happy to look after this half-boat, nee of Luna Park, and latter-day of a kindergarten.
Bring it up, put it in drydock, under one of the pines, in the lee of the weather.
Halfway through the party, all with drinks in hand, our host is spotted in a far-off paddock, in butterscotch shorts and tweed jacket, holding a stick, herding a gaggle of goats toward a group of children.
It’s fabulous to watch.
I excuse myself, and with the help of a travelling Welshman and a local hill lad, we unload the boat carcass, put it on stilts, wrap it in tarpaulins and rope, for safekeeping.
Another journey awaits.
When leaving the party, my friend puts a dozen eggs in a plant tub, fresh from his hens, his girls, some still warm from the laying, insists I have them, take them home, for me and the boys.
My Christmas tree is a sprig, in a milk jug.
Cards this year are more rustic than usual.
I’ve cut lengths of hardwood floorboards, daubed them with white house-paint, then painted a little festive flourish.
It’s a small batch.
All the materials used have been found.
The care is in the making.
My youngest boy rolls his eyes when he sees them on the kitchen table on a Saturday night.
(He’ll be getting one).
Here is my counterpoint, a touchstone, a tablet of wood, crafted to become something else.
The handmade, the slow, the rough-edged – sent now via digital technology, in an instant, a click, a scroll, a new page tab, downloaded.
The old, the new, each has its place.
And a merry Christmas to all.
And may all your boats sail true next year, and hold water, and may you hear the ocean’s sweet music as you go.
Dear Pig, are you willing to sell for one shilling
Your ring?" Said the Piggy, "I will."
So they took it away, and were married next day
By the Turkey who lives on the hill.
They dined on mince, and slices of quince,
Which they ate with a runcible spoon;
And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,
They danced by the light of the moon,
The moon,
The moon,
They danced by the light of the moon.
