Sharee Cuthbert

As another school holidays’ walks to a close, I can’t help but ponder the concept of time.And specifically; quality time.As parents, children, partners and friends, we’re often well-advised to consider and contribute to ‘quality’ time. Participating in the relationships we wish to be solid, at the very least, healthy, is of sound practice. But in my experience, it’s often more than the 15…

A lovely family dropped in today.  Their bikes stayed outside the gate with them, their shining glasses a rainbow in our day.  This is the new socializing, at least for the moment.  The children made funny faces with stands of timber ply between them, they started racing along the fence like under stimulated puppies, desperate to connect to their freedom on the other side. If you could accept…

The question who are you is one that has plagued mankind for centuries.  Freud grappled with the concept of self and not before the philosophical pursuit of life’s meaning has spurred many a dangerous expedition.  

None more risky an expedition as when Ford set out to beat Ferrari in the infamous Ford vs. Ferrari, 1966 Le mans race.  A man, to his own perception didn’t fit in with all the…

When I turned on the news this week, for a change, its local headline read, ‘Three Baboons escaped from hospital vasectomy. Wait, what? I laughed so loud my children thought it was grandma coming to visit them.  She would have laughed too.  

I’ve made a little broth, just in case, I’m making them drink a cup after breakfast. They’re not exactly impressed you know, but they know it makes me…

The Colours of Raincoats

I’m prepared this year with schedules.  Despite starting off the date’s year with a one instead of a two – – I am organized.  

I’ve cleared off desks, well piled up another in readiness for the 45 minutes of expected homework.  

I’m more nervous than they are.  Naturally, I have the added fear of play based learning slipping away.  It’s a letting go of the monkey bars and my no pressure…

Who would you choose to see again, a question often posed in creative arts; an attempt to fly open a block, a blind spot.  My pen stumbles.  I want to see my grandfather, PA, so he can tell me to wake up to myself, so he can earnestly laugh at me when I show him my wrinkles.  I want to see my grandfather so he can tell me to use the God damn talents I have been given.  

He always said I was…

In the light of the morning a little mummy slept until 7.  The little mummy felt strange, out of routine, she thought it a good day to sort out her stuff.  

She decided to look for some food.

For breakfast she ate poached eggs with smoked salmon buried under hollandaise sauce.  

Under the house sorting through her mother’s minimal worldly possessions; she realized, not for the first time…

Frozen, Frozen Two. How do they do it? An existential moment in time, captured as the only moment we truly have.  A desperate desire to cling to all that is precious, all that we perceive we have. 

It’s a modern day fairty tale but with traditional values. Idealistic bonds of family forever connected.  

But what is truly magical in this frosty sequel is the awareness of our fear and…

As good as it gets - Self - Compassion

My writing is getting neater, not entirely via perfectionism (although a rising concern) it’s out of necessity.  When I re-read my daily ramblings, not even as author do I make sense of it.  Emotive writing transgresses, the daily therapy of reflection.  Self-therapy; more specifically self-compassion buys patience and mindfulness. Gentle intuition of how to treat not only yourself but others…

Reading Sick Bay to my girl the similarities are aching.  Riley’s mum, a psychologist tends to babble on with, well, psychological babble.  Having an emotionally aware mum sometimes makes it difficult for her daughter to talk independently, perhaps to speak dumbly, without the risk of a conditioning label. Surely feelings can be original in adolescence.  After all isn’t being a teenager by nature…

Absotively Posilutely – Positive Emotion

Walking out of the lecture theatre to the learning jungle I wonder where my ordered book could be.  That’s when I see a library hovering above me.  There was a cool breeze so I repositioned my scarf and in an upward trend placed one ballet flat after another towards the entrance of the central library.

It was squirming with bodies, in pods, on lounges, often group and individual work hubs. The…

The colour of rejection

Free day. By free day I mean all children safely at school, work still on break and house work up-to-date (well…reasonably). Looking around, each member’s laundry basket is still sitting on my bedroom floor, full.  Perhaps I could put up some sort of screen, like it’s a separate room. What do they call those messy rooms? Mud rooms, yes that’s right.  All is well with a mud room.

Ignoring the…

Running the wrong way up the shopping centre ramp I laugh, trying to find the door to the shops can be navigationally challenging. My tween looks on curiously,  ‘Mum when have you really laughed the most?’. For some, perhaps the question would be tough, but for me, whilst my husband runs through my mind, it was with my mother and sister I adamantly reply.  She looks at me, somewhat sullen, I read…

A little girl, 5, played on her favourite beach.  Her mother kept a faithful eye on her while the girl scoured the rocks for her snail collection.  After some time the girl climbed down to her mother who assumed she would be presented with a treasure trove of shells.  What the little girl declared however was that she felt ‘unsafe’ in the presence of someone beside her on the rocks, so much so…

Bikes piled chaotically, boot open, we headed off slowly to the skate park.  A week of school holiday cabin fever beaconed some much needed sunshine, stamina and commitment.  My goal of getting all little magics off their training wheels!  So with grandma’s lemon cake recipe we were armed and potentially dangerous; and that was just the beginning of our risky endeavours. The netty courts provided…

One in a million

Sitting on the dining room table shovelling chicken soup into my little boy’s disgusted face I tell my husband another of my idea’s.  It’s these ideas we make together, idealistic some might say, ambitious, naive or stupid, we’ve thought them all.  His reply from the kitchen sink in chaos? ‘When you make a million dollars will you leave me?’ My pessimism points out all the potential short falls…