August left me mildly older but also braver.
Write what you know, they say: A personal story.
This is a longer post than I plan to write for updates. You’ll likely need to visit Substack to see it all. There are pictures which could make your preview short, due to the data restrictions of some Email systems.
So, did I progress my writing during August? Well yes, but also it was a massive month.
August was mostly devoted to helping my beloved partner move to the other side of the globe. I swear I will talk about the progress with my books, but first we’re going back in time to late 2012 and a classic Aussie Backyard Party. People keep saying that I should write the story of my life, but I think they mean how I’ve survived some pretty horrible stuff. That’s not what I want to write about, right now. Let’s cover something wonderful instead!
One of my favourite ‘episodes’ was this quintessential traditional gathering. The kind you have with a fire in an empty oil barrel, and get told last minute, “it’s a costume party!” Then you all stare at each other, across a central fire hoping it doesn’t blow up, wondering who will hook up with who.
(If you want to skip to the ‘book writing bit’, there’s a divider below. Just look for Carl Jung).
My friend Salli asked if I was attending Kathryn’s dress up party. Already confirmed were a ‘mixed lolly bag’ of people, invited on the basis of locality and availability.
Kathryn is to social networks what I am to homeschooling networks; a very useful ‘node’ who knows a lot of people. Kathryn had collected us via meetup apps, chats, failed dates turned friends, friends of friends etc. The age range was around the mid to late twenties. Most of those attending were markedly/marketably ‘single’, and looking to not be.
I was accepting the reality that single life was preferable to endless coffee dates with the ‘men everyone else rejected’. I lost count of the number of mid-thirties/forties men who would say, “I’m not a deadbeat dad” followed by “I babysit my kids every other weekend.”
I’ve always thought people need to have the decency of not having children if they were not prepared to be a parent. What a radical idea!
I almost didn’t go. Why? Because I had a rare weekend off parenting, and had cleaning to do, and 101 other excuses. At the same time, I did make a promise to myself to go to everything I was invited to.
I was 50/50.
But these friends of mine, who I mostly knew through Salli, told me to go. Way too many people had opinions that I.had.to.go. “I’ve nothing to wear. I gave all my costumes away.” I used to dress up in Medieval garb, including armour. I even marched with a shield wall in mock battles, holding a sword and board, but that’s another story.
One friend going said, “you have to come… there’s this guy from England who looks just like your son!” A group chat later, I gave in, “Yeah, ok I’ll go.” I’m weird enough to be intrigued. What would my son look like as an adult?
“I guess I could go as a geek girl? I’ve got a Dr Who t-shirt.” I’ve been a Whovian pretty much from birth. Anabel was helping me decide my outfit via video chat. My Montessori mate in another state. “Jeans or short skirt?” Of course, Bel said, “wear the short skirt.” Happily married with four children, we both home educated our children with a mix of Unschooling and Montessori. We both studied Montessori and aimed to start Montessori schools. While the plans for Newcastle Montessori are still germinating to this day, the Matchan family have been successfully running Southern Cross Montessori since 2014. Years later, she still reminds me that, “the skirt worked!”
Did it though?
People made more effort than I did, but I was a bit too old to care about that. I had just turned 38 and as 40 approached, I was getting dangerously braver about a lot of things, not just being happily single. Little did I know how brave I eventually would be! At that time, I was finally back into writing a novel about an accidental homeschooler, and I’d been home educating my two children long enough to feel like I’d passed over the hump of parenting. One was even washing their own clothes!
So this was me. What you can’t see are the girlfriends who wore very fancy dresses, two looked Victorian, others from the 1960s. Then there was the guy who had come along dressed as Facebook by drawing the word ‘BOOK’ on his forehead with a Sharpie permanent marker. He soon decided there was no one there he fancied and he left saying that, he had “two more parties to go to” that night.
At least he left us with something to talk about.
My son’s grown doppelgänger wannabe, Colin, was sitting on a foldout chair on the other side of the fire. I guess he looked a bit like my 8-year-old son, but I wasn’t convinced. They were both blonde, had similar features I guess, but it was a reach.
He was dressed as Arthur, from Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I already knew he was my junior by 9 years and part of the ‘haven’t had kids yet’ crowd, but I was impressed that he was into the sci-fi genre. We already had matching themes. I wondered what he was like to talk with?
When Col eventually ventured over to socialise, and I asked what he did, etc, he sighed a little and said he was a Mathematician. I probed for more details. I was interested because my late uncle had been a Mathematician, and they are so rare to find in the wild!
He needed to be more specific. While I kept asking for more, “and?”, “go on”, “keep going”, he responded with “pure Mathematics,” “Algebra,” “Group theory,” “topological groups.” Finally, I said something like, “tell me exactly the area like I would understand what you’re talking about”, and he replied, “totally disconnected locally compact groups.”
He then produced a most beautiful smile.
Later, he said he smiled because someone was finally interested enough in maths to ask him questions. I’ve loved Maths until year 11 when my teacher refused to explain Quadratic Equations to me, but fell in love with it again when Professor Jacqueline Ramagge taught me as a first year Uni student.
Most people stop the conversation when he mentioned his profession, interjecting that they hate maths, or they are bad at maths. My problem was only ever finding the teaching of maths in schools problematic. On that, we agreed.
We talked nonstop for the next 8 hours, even as we migrated into a hipster bespoke craft beer venue that used to be a dank dive, during my Art School days. I only briefly gave nods and thumbs up to my grinning girlfriends. I was implying, “he’s a decent human” but their eyes widened, as they gave me grins and each other whispers.
Col sent me an FB friend request as soon as he hopped on the bus at the end of the night. Our collective friends were shocked, and grilled me as soon as he had gone. They told me he was shy and didn’t talk much. “I didn’t know he could talk!” At that stage, I thought they just didn’t talk with him enough to get the conversation going. Actually, I still think that for anyone who assumes he doesn’t talk much. Colin talks A LOT!
Did we talk about t.d.l.c groups? We talked about everything!
So, Dr Colin Reid, contracted for 3 years at The University of Newcastle (UON), Australia became a friend of my little family, and was enfolded into our collective group of friends. My children commented that he had the same relaxed vibe as us. A happy, joyful almost Pikmin type of person.
And then there was the evening where Col had taken me on a date for his birthday, without telling me it was a date OR his birthday. A well intended mishap was behind us and we’d become really good friends.
I was off the dating apps but Col was still looking, as were most of the people at that party. I even took a new profile pic for him (see below). By now people were coupling up and new people were introduced to subsequent backyard parties and dinners out. It was only a matter of time that someone would snap up Colin, a ‘personification of sweetness’ that we called our friend.
And then, he asked if I would be his girlfriend.
My two, then 9 and 12, gave consent first. That’s what happens when you date someone’s parent, because the children know you could be taking their caregiver’s time away from them. You need, instead, to fit in and add, not subtract, from their lives. Col had already fitted in with us so it was a known variable.
My children didn’t see it affecting them much at all, actually, as he was already coming over to watch movies with us, play Settlers of Catan, etc. And it wasn’t like he was becoming their third parent. We were not interested in anyone who wanted to be a stepdad.
Col was not interested in dating anyone who wanted to have children, which made dating while an expat even more difficult. Most people were looking to start a family. He has never felt the urge to become a parent, and I respect people that feel this way and don’t have children.
The last thing children need is to feel as though they were part of a bingo card labeled the things you do to prove you’re an adult. He told me he “always saw himself as an Uncle” and I got it, because my Aunt had always felt that way too.
Aunty Mandy had taken care of me as a child and now was taking care of my two children, on some weekends. I love being a parent, and Col’s initial view of my two were that they’re proof that I must be a decent person. Starkly different from most men I had met on dates who told me that having already had children made me less desirable. The irony of their statement.
Dating Col didn’t feel like work. I never had to pause my life, like so many people do when in relationships. Each of us four individuals were working on our lives, separate but coming together to share. He lived 11 minutes walk from our place, just around the corner. As my children grew older, it was increasingly 4 separate humans sharing their experiences together. But it was also 5, because I was also caring for my Aunt remotely and increasingly not so remotely.
Like my mathematician uncle, Col played chess. Uncle Cameron taught me to play when I was 4. My uncle really wanted children and I remember thinking that he was more dad than my dad. Col played chess with a child too, my son, but his motivation was the game. I’ve always been observant of how adults interact with children, and knew even as a 3 year old at preschool that I would be a Primary teacher one day.
Col didn’t see my son as a child he wished was his, like my uncle did with me. He saw him as another human. He’s always respected them both. For a long time, my son was advanced in his Maths, and so it’s been interesting to watch how alike those two have been. As my son grew any similarity of features he had with Col faded, but I maintain that everyone was way too invested in the doppelgänger theory.
With us, Col had a place to belong, while he was so far away from home. As I snapped these photos in 2014 I was so grateful that we had this person in our lives that added to our experiences, no matter how long he was around.
When you home educate, you can afford to be selective about prioritising your time to quality experiences. For example, you don’t need to complete a whole workbook, just the pages you need to practice. Photocopy those pages, and pass the book on.
Fast forward to now, and my children are 22 and 19 and both have told me they’ve had great childhoods, and I’m so glad I took so many photos. I’ll never regret having home educated them both. They’ve also told me that Col and I gave them examples on how to be in a healthy personal relationship. We’ve still never had a fight.
As for lovely Colin and I, well we certainly never expected to have a whole decade together! He never thought he’d be in Australia for twelves years. His contracts have always been 6 months to 3 years. Just as one was ending, some miracle would happen and he would be offered another contract.
The reality is, Colin is working on truly ground breaking work with a cohort of other Mathematicians. The work here has continued because of the collective efforts of many, but most of all Professor George Willis.
Right now, he’s collaborating with colleagues thanks to the Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Research Award, for Mathematics, in Münster, Germany.
He’s been gone now for 15 days. After “leaving at the end of this year… no, this year… maybe actually in two more years,” now he’s actually gone. But we're still together. Me here, him there. The farewell party was great, with many of those original friends coming along with more people we’ve collected on the way.
Another Aussie backyard party, this time in the shared backyard of my Aunty and I, as I’m now her carer. She’s certainly earned the right to be cared for after being the best Aunty on the globe for over 50 years!
When we writers write, we put other things first. The dishes, errands, raising children. Often we make excuses to not write, based on fear of the enormity of the task, imposter syndrome, or worrying that pursuing the arts is a fool’s errand. My experience is that choosing to have children but pursuing art instead, and therefore abandoning the children, is the only foolish way to make art.
Art and creative thinking is not foolish. We need creative minds making things, inventing things. Colin knew he wanted to work deeply as a Pure Mathematician, a creative pursuit, and that he wouldn’t be as committed to raising children as he thought necessary, so he never brought children into the world. His choice to date someone who has chosen to have children and put them first, reiterates those values.
Only he and my children will ever know what kind of parent I was when no one else was looking. Hint: strong and fun, apparently.
All four of us share a deep love of learning. We have creative internal lives and we want to make something outside of ourselves whether that be designing costumes, film making, academic papers or literature which feature the lives of home educating children.
My duties for my Aunt are light and delightful. We have a lot of fun working together and she loves making things from wood and cardboard. The new workshop, we made when I took over her garage, just needs a final paint, and levelling out the floor to help with her balance issues. She’s really looking forward to making things again.
The five of us are all busily using our creative minds. We are in a totally disconnected, locally compact group. Shared experiences that are ongoing, residing in different parts of the world.
My youngest who is now my flatmate in the next room, with a life and partner of his own - uni student.
My eldest in Sydney with their partner - working, saving for a house, looking at possible more tertiary study next year.
My partner in Germany - finally in Europe where he can attend conferences, host a conference, liaison face-to-face with colleagues, be a lot closer to his parents, and his brother and sister-in-law, as Col becomes the Uncle he always hoped to be.
And me, living back in the suburb where I grew up, but in my grandparents garage. I designed and oversaw the conversion of it into a granny flat. Now, I’m in the middle of 19 books, set over 19 years, in a world I’ve built inspired by true stories, but with 120+ characters all of my own making.
I edited almost 5000 words and cut 3000. Just from the start of that novel though. It was like pruning a rose bush - hard back but blooming marvellous!
During August, I also outlined more of: YA 4, MG 2 and Picture Books 6 and 8, hosted a farewell party (backyard, sans fire), lost five kilos but found them again, turned 49 and got a lot braver as I move into full-time writing. It’s amazing how many words you write when your talkative partner is in a different timezone.
A few nights ago I rewrote chapter 1 of Novel number 1. The novel I was writing when I first met Col but was too frightened to finish. Back then I thought “who would buy in to a story about a parent being forced to home educate their children?”
Well, actually…
It’s probably the 15th time since I started writing this story that I attacked it, but this time, it was without fear: I killed my darlings, cutting two whole chapters I’d shoved in there for ‘backstory’.
I need the backstory, but the reader doesn’t.
I’m writing about home educators, for home educators. Representing my community with authenticity, across multiple genres, so our children can see themselves in literature: 2 Novels, 9 Picture Books, 4 Middle-Grade and 4 Young Adult. 1 interconnected community and all the books have interwoven stories.
For the people who will read these books, I hope our community is represented well by my words. If a byproduct is that more within the system understand what home education is really like then that’s an added bonus. I started down the academic route, but soon realised I would be shouting into the wind. Although, that was before 2020. I wonder…
We all leave the system, and choose not to go back to it, for a reason. Now to write about those reasons, through stories.
I thoroughly enjoy world building! Pulling voices forward like threads, woven into phrases that ring true. Stringing words together into sentences. Creating scenarios that are not unique events, but are common, familiar and the real experiences we share. There’s a repetitive nature to our collective histories, while at the same time we’re all unique: See, it’s t.d.l.c again.
Before I studied Primary teaching, I was in 11 art exhibitions, and I went to art school. This was to gain the required entry into the Bachelor of Teaching/BA course, at UON.
I’ve studied piano, played trumpet in the school band and was an alto in choirs as a child and adult. I’ve tried out many arts, including recreating Medieval garb, learning how to make armour to wear into recreated battles, as I mentioned, and C13th leather boots from a pattern traced from shoes that were dredged from the bottom of the Thames. They always felt like walking in butter.
The mediums I find most natural for me are writing and 3D multimedia miniatures using textiles, model making, recyclables etc, and photographing of those miniature scenes, to create illustrations for stories. 1:6, 1:12 and 1:32 scale, although that later mostly for the DnD props I make for my son. Stop motion, I would love to make some short movies. Less Gumby and more Coraline.
Basically, making miniature worlds, photographing them and writing the stories to go with them. I’m only illustrating 9 of the books, so some short little animations are likely too. I’ll post them in my Substack. Would you like that?
If you wonder where I am, I’m happily lost writing for my books and in the actual ‘world building’ messiness too. More photos to come!
I’m also editing the two podcasts, Educating Parent - Beverley Paine and I recorded just before Col and I headed down to Sydney Airport at the end of August. More podcast recordings to come, and my son has offered to help me edit the audios. He’s leaning towards film making as his major for his Bachelor of Communication, at UON.
Ok, Jan, Noah, Sean and Nora are all asking where I’ve gone. Time to use my thousands of hours of listening to families to bring these characters alive in the pages of their stories. That’s enough writing about the story of my life, for now.
Tamara Kidd
What a beautiful insight into your month, your life, your work, your world. Thoroughly enjoyed reading that.
Looking forward to seeing and reading more x
What an incredible story!
It’s not a “We fell in love story” it’s much more lovely, WOW! Thank you!❤️🙌