Books, Italian, Sourdough. And oh, anxiety.

I haven’t written in a few weeks because I’m a full time sourdough gal now.

Kidding. Well, I am a full time sourdough gal now but bread isn’t fully to blame.

My littlest babe Figgy got gastro on her 6 month birthday. Ugh, it’s so heartbreaking when little bubbas are sick and look you dead in the eyes like ‘what IS this?’. The hard thing with baby gastro is that they want comfort from the boob and then, the eat-spew cycle continues. Trying to encourage her to not feed while it was still activated, I gave her little sips of coconut water out of the cap and ice cubes in her silicon feeder. Erik and I had the bug too but we knew it was around so we fasted, and despite feeling disgustingly nauseous, we didn’t get the spews. Sol and Pax totally swerved it, thank God. It’s so true with sickies that we only get what we need. I’ll never forget my chiro saying to me once ‘did you get the (insert the sickness here)?’ I said ‘no! I didn’t!’ and him replying with ‘you don’t need it.’ I knew then we’d be buds. I get along famously with most chiros mind you.

I noticed with Figgy too something so clever— her body used the gastro to bring up some mucus that had been rattly since she got her first little ‘respiratory’ thing the week prior. It was like ‘oooh! Spewing! Let’s get this mucus out too!’. Our bodies are so clever aren’t they? I am so grateful for how strong and sturdy she is. She moved through it well and didn’t lose any chub which is always good news. A chubby baby is a happy one. Boy is she happy.

I’ve been buying her vintage baby clothes lately because I just can’t help myself. Osh Gosh overalls, high waisted trousers, sweet 90’s tees, bomber jackets. I’ll add a photo so you can see. I just love how well made the old stuff is. Also, vintage is my core style, so may as well be hers. Sol loves a good silk vintage blouse, glow mesh handbags and Pax loves a sweet pair of Levi’s jeans. Aside from that, they’ll wear the gorgeous woollen/natural materials clothes I buy blended with the fun Big W stuff my mum buys them. I learned to give up that fight years ago (while still washing them on hot because while I’m chill about it, I’m also not ok the chems on shitty clothes).

It’s turned wintery here in Aus, finally. Summer felt never ending and although I’m not someone to complain about that with my Mediterranean blood, I also have English blood and I yearn for the season to change. I find myself try-hardily wearing jumpers when it’s still 27 degrees celsius because I’m just ready for jumpers, dammit. I’m ready for soups, and slow cooker meals, and snuggling on the couch watching a show with the kids while it rains outside. I love being cozy inside while it rains outside. I think it’s one of the most real and simple forms of happiness for me. My loved ones, safe, warm and fed… and with me. It’s happiness at its purest.

This is the first year since 2020 we haven’t gone back to Italy at this time of year. I miss it. I miss our community there, our big Italian farm house, the food, the language, the landscape. I miss the raw dairy that’s right down the road and the raw milk and honey gelato at the Gelateria. I miss the chocolate croissants for breakfast and the way everything digests differently. I miss being in Europe, so much. I’ve come to realise how important Europe and England are for my soul. They help me piece things together about myself, and about life. Ancestry does that, I suppose. But also, sometimes certain places and cultures just help us make sense of things. We’re not all travellers, but some of us are. Although we’re not going this year (our farmhouse is being rented out), I’m longing to be back. I’m imagining a nice little stint in England, Scotland and/or Ireland, until we can go back to our Italian home. My husband posted a little clip of a Scottish golfer who won a recent event and I replied swiftly to his story "THIS IS A SIGN WE SHOULD GO TO SCOTLAND." One thing about me is I will make up signs and pretend they are signs. 

But in all truth, God gave us life so that we can live. So much of His beauty, truth and goodness is revealed to me when I venture back to those lands I love so much.

At home in Italy

It feels strange staying put for a full year as we’ve always been a travelling family. My eldest daughter Sol saw something between 9-11 countries in her first year. She came on my book tour and we weaved that in with trips for my husband’s work. My son Pax, also had a lot of travel in his early years as we bounced between Australia, USA and Italy trying to work out where to land. I used to think I was a nutcase with my incessant love of exploring. Now I accept the happiness it brings me, and the curiosity God gave me, as perfectly okay. I feel so lucky and blessed that I can travel. It was always such a big part of my dreams growing up as a kid whose family couldn’t afford to. “I’ll travel the world and home school my kids”, I’d say. Thank you God.

On drives in the car I’ve been playing my Italian lessons instead of music and it is so good for me. I have a mind of endless curiosity and if I don’t channel my focus in productive ways, I burn mental energy in unproductive and exhausting ways. My husband recently learned in some work he’s doing of a concept he calls ‘red brain’ and ‘green brain’. He’s having me make a list of things that put me in ‘green brain’, which is a flow like state of wellbeing and things that put me in ‘red brain’, which is the opposite.

Green brain things for me include long walks outside, a sauna (although I’m not doing them much right now while breastfeeding so often), writing, creating, baking, cooking, a tidy environment, coffee shops, books, long chats with girlfriends… I haven’t sat down to do my list properly yet but these things come to mind.

Red brain things for me are things like scrolling, and looking at meaningless yet charged things online which really aren’t necessary for me to consume, worrying, fixating, a cluttered environment, lack of movement…

Lately I’ve been more on Instagram than I’d like because being able to share something with such brevity has been useful in these busy times. But, the quick, intense, whiplashy dynamic of Instagram isn’t something I love.  I still haven’t found a balanced groove with it, if I’m honest. Unless my balanced groove can be described as ‘being on there a lot for a few months and then totally off it for the rest of the year.’ When I get in a groove of regularly posting on Instagram, I find myself wanting to make quick bites of content and then wanting to digest the same from others. What I really want to do is work on something more meaningful, like another book, and let Instagram simply be a billboard for it.

It’s easy to let Instagram become the main thing, and forget about the main things we really want to make creatively. I mean, my home and family are my main thing. My heritage. My legacy. The most important place for my time, gifts and love. But I also want to make, write, express. If I have time to consume on social media, surely I have time to write a book. Surely, I can chip at it slowly in the pockets. But social media uses a different part of the brain— book writing requires a certain flow and a discipline. Instagram feels like a loud party. I’m not being an insta sook, because I know we can have a flourishing relationship with it and I know my relationship with it is my responsibility but also, there is an inherent dynamic to it— intentional with its design— a little discombobulating if not careful.

I was making great tracks on a new book two years ago, and then my ‘Jesus situation’ as Caroline Dooner puts it, happened. Some things that were true became not true when Jesus showed me otherwise. I needed to pause it because my worldview was changing and I needed to let that all settle in before putting more work out there in the form of a static, permanent book. I’ve written three books, two of which I don’t publish anymore. Those books were pretty big on concepts and observation, whereas this new one is more ‘my account’, memoir ish— which gives more freedom. I’m not trying to establish timeless concepts. I’m telling a story.

I’ve grappled with writing another book. I’ve got a two volume book called The Mother Summer completely done and I’m not publishing it because although a true and honest account of my early mothering experience, I feel there is too much in there that is spiritual in the way that I am not, now. It’s ‘that’ kind of spiritual and not ‘this’ kind of spiritual. I’m an over thinker if nothing else, but it is important to me that I can stand by my books and not promote ideas that I no longer believe in wholeheartedly.

I have a new kids book, fully done, illustrated— been done for years!! And I haven’t published it because thoughts of ‘who needs another kids book’ have won out. I don’t want to die with a google drive full of words YOU KNOW?! HELP!!

What I’m realising,  just to cut to it, is that my anxiety has played a part in recent years in how and what I share. I’ve been conservative and have lost a lot of the natural, carefree expression I once had with my audience. When I went back and archived a bunch of insta posts last year, with the thought that I’d deactivate it, I was amazed at how hilariously shi* my posts were and how ballsy I was in posting absolutely anything. Short captions, fleeting moments. I mean, I even posted a tub of protein shake as its own picture, and I put a filter on it. Um, wot?! Why would you filter a tub of protein shake as its OWN PICTURE ON THE GRID?!

I had 2-3 likes on each photo and I couldn’t have cared less. Then there were the ones of my friends and I before heading into Berghain nightclub in Berlin. I’d just snap a pic of a friend, dressed in black, he’d worn eyeliner to look extra edgy to ensure our entry (Berghain has a very strict vibe and some of my friends got rejected over and over again cos they looked too touristy and not ‘cool’ enough), and I’d post it. Just a photo of a friend. Caption, an inside joke. Likes? 3.

That is the carefreeness I want to have again. But it changes. It changes when an innocent personal Instagram page becomes a ‘brand’. It changes when you go from being followed only by friends and family, to being followed by strangers all over the world. It changes when you go from posting random, meaningless photos (a tub of protein powder— iconic), to wanting things to be more refined, deep. At least that’s the way it went for me.

I’m a deep person. My depth is authentic. But in real life, I’m also rough, make jokes 95% of the time, and most of them are far too edgy that I’d dare not post them in a realm where people can’t understand context, and often, humour. The illiteracy of people on the internet is so incredible to me, that it makes me just want to not post.

People are overly entitled. Strangers expect other strangers to uphold their idea of them. Or how they should be. Cue, angry lefties. Ugh. I wrote all about this in my second book ‘Stop Missing The Point’.

It’s both this despair at the social media landscape and also the response it sometimes triggers in my body, that makes the comfort of ‘going offline’ feel right.

You may or may not have read stories of my childhood, of how I used to carry a butter knife for protection (at least I thought so) as I walked through the rough streets to buy my nanna’s groceries, or how I had to learn to hop on and off the bus at certain stops every single day because of people getting on with syringes, violently drunk and looking for fights, or how I’d get off the bus and sprint home through the undercover carpark looking over my shoulder, timing whether or not I could run down the alleyway safely. My situational awareness is ON POINT to say the least, but I have lived with anxiety for as long as I can remember. Officially diagnosed as a teen, too.

My anxiety has made me hyper vigilant, naturally. It was a safety mechanism and it worked. I never stopped living my life though. I’d still catch the train to work at 6am on summer holidays, walk through rough areas on my own, walk home from work at 9pm solo down St Kilda road when I lived in Melbourne. I never stopped living. I just did so with such an automatic, constant state of hyper vigilance.

About a decade ago, after I started experiencing big success in my then rapidly growing network marketing business, I was harassed online by people in my home town. It seemed everyone had something to say about it, constantly and passionately. It wasn’t objective either— it became personal with them sharing photos on hidden forums of my sister and taking photos when they saw me and my friends out and about. It was constant and it was intense. It was also very real— these were people who knew where I lived— in a  bottom floor apartment by myself. These were people who lived in the same small city as me, where everyone knew everyone. I looked over my shoulder everywhere I went. I remained bold in my sharing online, like I said, I never stopped living. But it affected me. It wasn’t just words. It felt like a constant threat to my physical safety.

Then, as I married my husband and had the eyes of hundreds of thousands of people involved with his company— many of which felt the need to constantly criticise or assess me, it all deepened. The praise never got to me. But there was a part of me that was always on the look out for that which could harm my safety.

Slowly over the years I shrunk.

My expression changed.

I over thought. I deleted.

My relationship with social media has been a constant reflection of my relationship with so much else.

I went from being the angry lefty, to being the target of them.

I went from wanting to comment on people’s hunting photos how disgusted I was, to totally understanding it.

I went from seeing red whenever I saw Donald Trump on TV, to understanding how the media works, how illusory and fabricated so much of it is.

But I digress.

Over the years as I became a mum, the safety of my family became infinitely more important than anything I could ever do on social media, and sometimes it actually felt like a choice between the two.

Years ago when I posted about how wrong I thought it was to replace ‘breastfeeding’ with ‘chest feeding’, the backlash was so intense that I found it very hard to parent while dealing with the very real response in my body.

I couldn’t express in the full truth of what I actually felt, without fearing the repercussions. My wanting to speak was in competition with my need for safety.

I know we all have to work through this within ourselves. We have to learn to regulate ourselves, duh! At times I have done it so well but at other times, for example, in times of sleep deprivation and recurring mastitis, I just felt I didn’t have the bandwidth.

What ends up happening if we don’t resolve this within ourselves, is that our expression is repressed and we give too much power to strangers on the internet. This is the truth that has brought it all to life for me.

I was in an unhealthy power dynamic with my audience.

I was giving them too much power over my expression and sometimes, my wellbeing.

The truth is, I don’t owe my audience any kind of perfected expression.

Knowing this doesn’t automatically deal with the anxiety. Those who’ve lived with chronic anxiety know that it becomes such a part of your everyday life, you wonder how it’s possible others don’t deal with the same.

Jesus has helped me with a lot of it, but I am still a work in progress. I have had to visualise every night, laying down the thoughts, fixated worries and burdens I’ve never even voiced at the foot of the cross. I’ve had to remind myself to give them to Jesus, just as He asked us to. More so, it’s what He died for. So we could live.

One day I was in church— not the church I go to now but a more young, hip one. The worship is WILD there. I mean, a full 60 minutes of INCREDIBLE Grammy level singing. Calvin Klein model church, some people say. People are so free, with their arms in the air, on their knees— just so in the moment. Sure some are probably performing but for the most part it truly feels most are totally in it with the Holy Spirit.

I was standing there, up the back, my hands behind my back, singing heartily but so unable to let my hands go in the air. I wanted to be one of those people so ‘there’ that they could surrender their entire selves to their worship. Why could I just sway with my hands behind my back? I even felt it was a relief to hold my baby in my arms so I didn’t have to think about why I couldn’t be as free in my ARMS IN THE AIR as everyone else. I kept thinking about it. I’d go between feeling hit by the music to totally in my head about how lame my swaying was.

But then I decided to stop thinking about something so trivial and use this time to pray instead. So, I tell Jesus what’s on my mind.

I tell him that I am so scared to surrender my life to Him fully because I am so afraid that it will mean something too painful. It’s just like what C.S Lewis said— “Maybe you aren’t doubting that God will do the best for you, but wondering how painful the best might be.”

I hear a message as clear as day. It was this:

“All I want is your hands.”

All I want is your hands.

All I want is the cares you have for what others will think.

All I want is for you to freely worship.

All I want is for you to bravely speak.

All I want is your hands.

Let them go from behind your back.

You don’t have to timidly sway.

Give me your hands.

When I write, and when I leave the comments section up even though I know there are all kinds of words in there, it is me ‘giving Jesus my hands’.

He did not die for my timid swaying. He died so I could have the fullness of life.

I would be lying if this revelation meant that I don’t still struggle with it. I do.

But it is here that I go when I need bravery, strength and peace.

It is here that I go when I need to be reoriented and reminded— why do I share at all?

The answer is this.

Beauty. Truth. Goodness.

I am sharing God’s beauty, truth and goodness as it can be expressed through me.

What social media is doing for me, is showing me parts of myself that I need Jesus’ healing hands on.

Posting on social media isn’t the be all and end all for me. I know the world doesn’t need my voice. It’s not that important. I’m not selling anything right now at all, so it’s not even that I’m showing up with a clear ‘target’ or purpose— it’s purely for expression, beauty, truth, goodness.

That matters to me, a lot.

Getting out of God’s way. That matters to me.

Feeling like I am doing good work with the gifts and life God gave me. That matters to me.

Recently I’ve taken stock of what I actually want to do with the little bits of time I have for creative projects. It was one of my goals this year to learn the art of sourdough. To be honest, it was a straight up fear of mine. It seemed SO complicated and I felt so inept. But as with anything, a little application and now I’m OBSESSED and encouraging every who walks into my house to start their starter. I make sourdough banana bread from my discard and am in such a rhythm with my baking and WHO AM I and why do I find SO MUCH JOY in this?! I mean, I couldn’t ever have imagined saying such a statement back in my angry lefty days. It’s important to me that I continue learning Italian. And one other thing that is so important to me? Books. Gosh. I really care about books.

I’ve gone back and forth in my head about whether or not to write another. I totally blew out money wise on my others as I self published them, two in full colour— paid for the entire process myself. My limited edition kids book, all handmade in London and Italy I mean…. Can you imagine the expense? I did it because I love books. I love the craftsmanship and the beauty and that we can hold them without being buzzed with electricity.

I’ve read articles about how bad the business of books is now.

Courses make more money.

Publishers only want you if you curate to their liking, etc.

I know all of this. But, books.

I want my kids to hold things I made in their hands. To know me through my words. Who’s to know if that’s possible if an internet crash were to happen, wiping everything clear?

I want the satisfaction of long art, again. Long art takes such discipline in this fast buzzy world.

The other day I told my husband of the 8234 things I could do, knowing most of them were other people’s paths and not mine.

I am so blessed to not be in the position where I need to make it about money. I have been there and done that.

I GET to make it about art. I GET to have my art work around my motherhood and home.

I feel so tremendously blessed to be here.

I want to travel the world (all the time) and meet with likeminded women in cozy book stores and have long chats over matchas. I want to give them something to hold in their hands, that reminds them of the beauty of the book, not just the words in it. This is what I set out to do with the limited edition kids book— bring timeless beauty to the mumma.

So, it is what I’m setting out to do again. I’m re-beginning the book I paused writing two years ago, but with all that has been renewed in me since Jesus ripped open the veil.

I don’t know who needs to hear this but, please don’t let books become an endangered species.

I wonder how many books aren’t being written, or films aren’t being made, because artists have jumped in the speed boat with content creators and forgotten the difference.

A reminder not to let the speed boat of our modern culture keep you from learning Italian, how to make sourdough, or writing your book. It is easy to forget how much slow beauty matters to you in a world where artificial intelligence can write your ebook and you can make a gazillion bucks on the internet in a week. The pursuits of the soul take discipline.

Ok, that was a lot.

I’d LOVE to hear from you in the comments.

Comment on the above or anything at all.

Lotsa love and God bless.

PK XXX