A Letter to my Daughter

Today, after arguing with you for about an hour to try to get you to brush your hair, I smacked you on the leg with the hairbrush. I thought it was just a tap, an attempt to bring you back down to earth, but it left a red mark and I realised I had let my anger get the better of me. It frightens me to think I have the capacity to hurt you, even if just slightly.

My relationship with you is complicated, I struggle with it constantly. Motherhood hasn't settled easily with me - which is something I never expected. I look after things, I always have - people, animals (although I've never been that great with house plants)and I just expected to be a natural mother. But there was a whole lot of stuff I didn't anticipate...

I wanted a baby, I wanted to get pregnant and I wanted to be a mother. After two years and two miscarriages though I was defeated and depressed. I'd almost given up on the idea of having a baby and as is usual for cases like this once I stopped trying, I got pregnant. But unlike the previous two - you hung in there. I can't describe the elation I felt the first time I felt you move, you were my little passenger, my constant companion and I felt such a bond to you it was euphoric. But after 14 hours of hellish pain, exhaustion and finally a forceps delivery I was so physically and emotionally wrecked that when we finally met face to face I couldn't care, I just wanted to go to sleep.
Apparently it's not unusual for mothers to not have that instant maternal bond that we hear about. There is supposed to be an endorphin rush that wipes away all memory of the pain and induces a flood of love for the new baby, but it doesn't always happen. It certainly didn't happen for me. I didn't feel like I was your mother, my brain couldn't make the connection between the little passenger and this new baby - I didn't know who you were. Yet I was fiercely protective. When the nurse did the heel prick to take a blood drop I heard your little dolphin squeal and I jumped out of bed and ran straight to you, even though I was in so much pain from the episiotomy that all previous attempts to walk had been unsuccessful.
A few days later I walked out of the hospital with you in my arms and was baffled that no-one was trying to stop me. It felt so wrong, I had no idea how to look after a baby and I couldn't believe I was being allowed to take responsibility for this little life. The mother-baby bond just wasn't there. I felt like your caretaker and if a woman had knocked on my front door and said "thank you for looking after my baby, I'll take her now" I probably would have handed you over.
For the next few months we fought every four hours as I tried to get you to breast feed, eventually just the act of me picking you up would have you screaming in anticipation of the coming battle. It broke my heart that I couldn't feed you, I felt like a failure. The basic instinct of mothers is to feed their young and I couldn't do it. I tried everything to get you to feed - I took you to an osteopath who said the forceps had compressed the skull plates and you had a constant headache. After that treatment your mood did improve, but you still wouldn't feed. I went to a lactation clinic every week and dozens of midwives tried to help us. I took you to a doctor who said you were tongue tied. I remember your little face looking at me with total innocence, then the look of shock as the doctor shoved her fingers in your mouth and the look of total betrayal when the doctor snipped the membrane under your tongue. Your little mouth filled with blood and you screamed - the whole time looking at me not comprehending why I had let someone hurt you.
The battle to breast feed became harder and harder until after 10 weeks I finally surrendered. I didn't want to fight you anymore, I wanted us to be friends. I wanted to try to build our relationship but I felt so wretched, I condemned myself as the worst mother in the world and I've never really been able to shake that.
I also couldn't understand why I couldn't get you to settle to sleep - it took over an hour every time. You cried and I didn't know why and I couldn't comfort you. More failure. Eventually your reflux was diagnosed and medication changed our lives. Suddenly you were a happy baby, the heart burn that had afflicted you was gone and you got on with the business of being a baby.
But by this time my mental health was failing. I had reached a stage where I was convinced you hated me. Usually what would happen is that after an hour of fighting with you to breast feed or trying to calm you to sleep I would give up and your father (if he was there) would take over and be the conquering hero with the welcomed bottle or his calmness would be all that was needed for your exhausted little mind to finally surrender to sleep. I was the bad parent. Also failing was our ability to support ourselves financially. I had changed jobs too recently to be eligible for paid maternity leave and your father had mismanaged our investment property and lost us a considerable amount of money. I was forced to return to work when you were only 3 months old.
I hated leaving you at creche, in the care of strangers, while I went off to work. The first day I tried to relished the luxury of being able to drink a coffee while it was still hot, to go to the toilet at my leisure, of being able to spend a day uninterrupted but the guilt nagged me. When I got back to day care and they told me how good you had been, how quiet and compliant you had been my heart sank. My belief that you hated me and didn't need me was obviously true. Total strangers could take better care of you than I could. I was wrong. The minute we left the premises (how did you know??) you stared screaming and you let loose a whole days worth of fears and anxieties and pain. You gave me what you had been saving all day long, what you had been unable to let out with strangers. For over an hour I sat let you cry and cry and tell me, I imagined, all about how lost and abandoned and frightened you felt. Finally you settled enough for me to take you home.
Eventually we formed a routine and you began to enjoy day care. As you got older I began to realise you would have more fun there than you would ever have with me at home and my anxiety waned.
The stress of work and a baby that was still feeding at night was too much for me, the sleep deprivation and the lack of support from your father wore me out. I fell into depression. Once I realised that there was something wrong with me I went to the doctor and she gave me antidepressants. With the medication, you sleeping through the night and support from my work mates I finally began to cope.

But is was hard. When you were less than 2 years old my marriage with your father ended. His career was in question and I didn't know if he would be employed again soon. My own job was subject to funding and unstable so I accepted a job that wasn't close to your day care and that wasn't sympathetic to my single parent status but it was permanent and paid well. Once your father moved out of the house my bond with you started to solidify. All we had was each other. I realised I had put so much energy into resenting your father for being unsupportive that once that was gone I had more energy for you. However, the conflict that had always existed remained.

I remember one morning we left the house, you were in the car seat in the back and I was driving. It was a cold day so I had put a jumper on you. You didn't want the jumper. In the thick of Melbourne peak hour traffic you started screaming "I want to take my jumper off". You screamed until you were hysterical, then you kept screaming. I couldn't pull over, there was no-where to go in the heavy traffic and I couldn't reach you. Eventually we arrived at day care and I found a parking spot. I reached into the back and ripped the jumper off you then collapsed into tears of my own. You were shocked, I don't think you'd ever seen me cry before. You crawled into my lap, apologised and tried to comfort me.
Another time we were driving to Torquay for the weekend, it was Friday night, it was getting late and I was lost. You were in the backseat babbling as usual and I started getting stressed. You asked me what was wrong and I said we were lost. You replied "it's OK Mamma, I'll take care of you".
Bless your little two year old heart.

When you were 4 years old there was a headlice epidemic at the day care centre and every three days I would comb conditioner through your fine, thick hair with a fine tooth comb. Generally you were pretty good and tolerant of the procedure. Unfortunately your father was less vigilant and when you returned to me after a week with him I would invariably get a call from day care telling me you had head lice and to come and get you. My sick leave and annual leave got used up very quickly. The manager was furious and even though I told her to dock my pay and I didn't let my work suffer she refused to be sympathetic to my situation. The stress at work became so bad I was constantly sick, my ability to cope erroded and eventually the only solution I could see was to quit my job and move us to Canberra to live with Marc.

The move hurt you. You missed your Dad and you missed your friends at day care. The preschool I enrolled you in had only 10 students and 7 of them couldn't speak english. You struggled to make friends, your outgoing and happy nature dissapeared and you became shy and withdrawn at preschool and volatile and uncooperative at home. My efforts to rescue us had back fired.
That first year in Canberra we really got to know each other. We had only had weekends and evenings together your whole life - you had effectively been raised by the day care staff. I knew how to be a part time mother but full time is totally different, I had a lot to learn. I knew how to be organised with food and clothes and how to get you to places on time but when we didn't have to go anywhere, when it was just you and I for days on end I was unsure. But we muddled through and when you started school I stood and cried with all the other mothers. A week later I was still crying and they all started to think I was a bit soft in the head.

Your only friend from preschool went to a different school and once again you were alone and insecure. I went back to work and you started attending after school care, it was there you finally started making friends and some of your spark came back.
We had settled into Canberra but the distance from your father and his inconsistant contact was hard for you - you missed him. When you returned from a visit with him you were always an angel, but as the weeks passed and his phone calls dwindled your behaviour would deteriorate and we would end up fighting.

You're an early riser - I like to sleep late. Marc is a night owl so in order to spend time with my husband but also take care of you I was perpetually sleep deprived and as a result: cranky. Unfortunately you feed off my energy and the crankier I got the worse your behaviour got and we would invariably end up screaming at each other.

I want you to know I've done my best - I've tried to enjoy playing with Barbies and the endless board games you own but it just isn't in me to fake it.
Recently we had a mother/daughter week of activities - my attempt to build some bridges and give us some time together where we weren't bickering. I mostly succeeded but WOW was it exhausting. When we were in the pool I realised that it was the first time I had been swimming with you. You went swimming all the time with your father and I realised I had to start letting myself be the good parent too. I think you're at that age now where we can enjoy more things together and I know I need to make the most of it because pretty soon you'll be embarrassed to be seen with me and trying desperately to get away. But you're still very young. I think I expect you to be more self sufficient that you're ready to be. I get cranky when we are riding our bikes and I have to stop every 10 meters to adjust the strap on your helmet or wait for you to catch up because you had stopped to look at a twig. I need to remind myself that it's the journey.
You are one of the most tolerant and big hearted kids I have ever met. You continue to love me even when I loose my temper and smack you with a hair brush. You are generous and caring and very loving and I will always be fiercely protective of you. I guess the whole point of this is to tell you that I love you more than anything and I try to be a good mother - I'm just still working out how.

We've been together over seven years now and our bond is solid. You are my one and only and you tell me "you are the best mother I've ever had" and can't ask for anything more. Oh, except that you brush your hair. Read more!

Are you Vamp enough?

The first vampire film I remember seeing was the 1979 Werner Herzog version of Nosferatu the Vampyre. I sat mesmerised, enraptured by the most beautiful and erotic film I had ever seen. It was the early 80’s and I was a country town teenager, totally disgruntled with where my bogun upbringing had landed me. That film set me on a road to a different life; it planted in me a taste for the ethereal and the elegant. Over the next year or so I shed my denim cocoon and emerged in black, with my hair shaved into a long Mohawk with my eyes rimmed in black. I discovered self adornment and a passion for beautiful clothes. There were many other influences of course, and I have written about them before, but that vampire film was the spark.
I have since devoured as many vampire books and films as I could find. And I’m the first to admit that most of them are rubbish. The recent surge in vampire literature and film has me again pondering the hold that this legend has over us. I’m not going to rant about the psychology of it all, it’s been done to death (pardon the pun), but I will give my opinion on the best of all that’s Vamp. There are a gazillion blogs, web pages, forums etc about vampire films and in comparison I am a mere amateur, but I have been a fan of the genre for almost 30 years and even though this list is by no means comprehensive it encompasses my experience and opinions.

So the 1979 Nosferatu of course led me straight to the 1922 F. W. Murnau film Nosferatu: A symphony of Horror. This film is a masterpiece.
I recently saw Avatar, James Cameron’s epic 3D fairytale. Sure, it looked fabulous – but that was all there was. The story was Fern Gully meets Land Before Time, the acting was laughable, the dialogue was terrible and the husband and I agreed it was truly an awful film. And it cost $500 million to make! Yet in 1921 Murnau made a black and white silent film that has more impact, more atmosphere and an intensity that has rarely been equalled. And it was probably made with the equivalent of a few hundred thousand dollars. So the Nosferatu films are my benchmark. I was worried when E. Elias Merhige made Shadow of the Vampire in 2000. As we all know, Hollywood’s ability to take something glorious and turn it into trashy shit knows no bounds and I was terrified they would do this with Nosferatu. But no, in this rare instance they got it 100% right. The combination of the surreal nature of the original, the clever incorporation of original shots into the new film and the humour and brilliant performances works sublimely. It is a beautiful compliment to the original.
Of course the 1931 version of Dracula with (my puppy’s namesake) Bela Lugosi is the definitive Dracula. It is a classic. Often overlooked though is the Spanish version which was filmed at the same time with different actors but using the same sets at night. It is a superior film in terms of direction and cinematography, but the actors don’t have the presence of Lugosi or Frye (Renfield) and the film ends up being a bit on the boring side. If only they could have used the English actors with the Spanish director!!
The 60’s and 70’s gave us many vampire films and I personally love the kitschy Hammer Horror versions, although I don’t like Christopher Lee. The Twins of Evil is a personal favourite. Daughters of Dracula and The Vampire Lovers are great, even if just for the clothes. There were a dozen other lesbianesque films made in the 60s, but they’re all pretty much the same. The uber kitsch blacksploitation film Blacula is actually a lot better than you’d think. I love it. The Fearless Vampire Killers, Polanski’s 1967 film, is very funny although in light of recent revelations about the rape charges against him I’m almost ashamed to own it. I feel like I should hide my Polanski collection under the bed. Polanski also made a cameo in Andy Warhol’s Blood For Dracula, which is trashy and outrageously funny. Pair it with Flesh for Frankenstein made at the same time and with the same actors and you have a very entertaining evening. The BEST vampire film of the 70’s however, was actually Australia’s first attempt at a vampire film, The Thirst (1979). Unfortunately it was overshadowed by Mad Max and it is now somewhat obscure. It is available on DVD though if you search hard enough.

I was a very serious teenager and as a new release The Lost Boys (1987) didn’t do it for me. I watched it again recently, having long since removed the stick from my arse, and thought it was very good, a nice spoof. The sequal Lost Boys 2: The Tribe (2008) is quite bad. Another 80’s effort was Vamp (1986), starring Grace Jones. Watch it just for her work. She does an amazing striptease and I bought the DVD simply for that - the rest of the film is trash. In 1988 Ken Russell made Lair of the White Worm, based VERY loosely on Bram Stoker’s novel. It is an absolute hoot, in spite of the Ken Russell trademarks all over it. 1989’s Vampire Kiss with Nicholas Cage is very clever and very funny. But the best of the 80’s would have to be the sublimely erotic The Hunger (1983) and Near Dark, released in 1987 starring Lance Hendriksen who I adore. They are two of the most realistic vampire films I have found and in my top 10 all time favourites.

1992 brought us Wynona’s pet project Bram Stoker’s Dracula (F.F. Copolla). If you can ignore Keanu and Wynona making a total hash of the English accent and the fact that Keanu couldn’t act his way out of a paper bag, the rest of the film is gorgeous. Richard E. Grant is, as always, brilliant, aside from the blaring continuity error in one scene but the reason I love the film so much is Gary Oldman and the costumes. The scene where Dracula is walking the streets of London, wearing a grey suit and top hat and round sunglasses with his long hair flowing down his back is to me borderline pornography. When he looks over his glasses and says “see me now” I melt. Stunning, utterly stunning. When this film was released it was a hot summer, I had a broken heart, it was the summer break from University and I lived near an old cinema. I think I saw that film about seven times in two weeks. It was an escape from the heat, escape from my emotional pain and an escape from the hippy bullshit of the house I was living in. That film took me from cheesecloth-vegetarian-beige-share-house hell and transported me to a world of gentile elegance and glamour. The costumes and the sets are divine. So even though it is fundamentally flawed, it is one of my favourites.
Also from the 90’s we have Cronos (1993) a Mexican film with the fabulous Ron Perlman. Nadja (1994) is very arty and lovely to watch. Razor Blade Smile (1998) is a low budget gem with terrible acting and bad production but the story is unique and clever. Wisdom of the Crocodiles (1998) with Jude Law is an unusual take on the genre but ultimately dull.

The 00’s have thrown a mixed bag of vampire films at us. The best are the Russian films Night Watch (2005) and the sequel Day Watch (2006) they are brilliant. They crap all over the American vampire efforts for that decade, as does Eternal Blood (2007) another Mexican horror. The exception is The Hamiltons (2006) which was an independent release and a very good attempt at realism.

I am Legend, the 1954 novel by Richard Matheson, is undoubtedly one of the best vampire stories around. So good it has been made into film three times. The first being Last Man on Earth (1964) starring Vincent Price. Apparently Matheson worked on the script but was so unhappy with the end result took his name off it. I love it, but then it has Vincent so what’s not to love?? The next was in 1971, The Omega Man starring Charlton Heston. It’s very good and does the book justice as best as Hollywood can – which is to say, not very well. Then there was the 2007 blockbuster I Am Legend with Will Smith. As a standalone film it’s very good. But I can’t help compare it to the book and they just messed with the story too much, and for no real gain other than conforming to the stereotype – vampires bad, humans good and good always wins. Changing a fundamental aspect of the plot also changed the meaning of the title. I live in hope that one day, someone will make I Am Legend as it is written and it will kick arse.
Also released in 2007 was 30 Days of Night which almost impressed me: the scenario was brilliant, the vampires looked great but I just got annoyed with all that blood splattering. Sure all the red splashed on the snow looked dramatic, but really, if you go to all the effort of isolating a whole town in order to harvest a precious resource – why would you then spill it all over the ground?
Let The Right One In (2008) is a Swedish film that unusually uses a young girl as the vampire protagonist. It’s very good but very Swedish.

I am now waiting for the release of DayBreakers starring Ethan Hawke,Sam Neil and the marvelous Willem Defoe. From the trailers I have seen it is something of a spin on The Thirst, possibly due to it's Australian production?

So then we move onto the bad. Interview with the Vampire (1994) is awful, although not nearly as bad as the appalling sequel Queen of the Damned (2002). Even though I was an extra in Queen of the Damned I still can’t bring myself to buy a copy of it it’s just SO bad. The Blade films (1998, 2002, 2004) didn’t appeal to me, neither did Ultraviolet (2006) or the Underworld series (2003, 2006, 2009). That said, I love Bill Nighy and think he makes an excellent vampire and I suspect my husband secretly masturbates over Kate Beckinsale in that outfit.
Dusk Till Dawn (1996) has bored me to sleep twice, Dracula 2000 is dreadful but the notion of Dracula being Judas Iscariot is interesting. And then there is Twilight (2008), which was actually my inspiration for writing this. Twilight and New Moon the 2009 sequal, have made such an impact on tween culture, and have helped bring vampires very much into fashion, yet they are utter, utter rubbish. Well, I haven’t seen New Moon and I don’t intend to but I can extrapolate. Watching Twilight made me feel like I’d been robbed of 2 hours of my life. The best that can come of these films is that some of the more obscure films I have mentioned will get some attention now that vamps are the new big thing. It saddens me that the genre has been so cheapened, but then I said I loved Blacula, so what the fuck do I know?
As far as television series go there’s been Nick Knight with Rick Springfield, the pilot was released as a movie in 1989 and it’s terrible but he drives a gorgeous Cadillac. The TV series wasn’t made until 1992, with different actors, as Forever Knight. It’s awful. Also awful is Moonlight and The Vampire Diaries. True Blood is however, great stuff. It’s tacky, kitsch, very, very silly and I love it. I even love the opening credits. But by far the best TV series I’ve ever found is Ultraviolet (1998), a British police drama about a secret unit who exist only to hunt vampires. It is very well made, and has a British touch of class. The word “vampire” is never used.

So that’s it. Larissa’s guide to vampire film and TV Top 10:

1. Nosferatu The Vampyre
2. Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror
3. Near Dark
4. The Hunger
5. Razor Blade Smile
6. Bram Stoker's Dracula
7. Ultaviolet the TV series
8. The Thirst
9. Cronos
10. Night Watch/ Day Watch


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Yule Tidings

As I have vehemently stated previously – I love Christmas. Last year was something of a dud and with the girl off to Melbourne to spend time with her Dad I expected this Christmas to suck as well. The day would be only myself, the husband and the delinquent 16 year old whose company I have become loath to keep. My usual enthusiasm for baking cakes, puddings, gingerbread and panforte was absent; my enthusiasm for decorating the house and tree was also subdued by the very high possibility that Bela would just eat everything. Finally, I managed to gather some resilience and I bought a small tree – green much to the girls delight – which we decorated with pink balls and white tinsel then hid in the corner where hopefully the dog couldn’t get to it. We then baked and decorated a few trays of gingerbread for the girl to take with her for her other family.
The girl’s birthday party went well and her father whisked her away for her three week stay with him. After an initial few days of feeling lost without my sidekick some of my usual Christmas cheer started to bubble up. I made rude gingerbread people and bats and skulls for workmates. On the 23rd December, my last day of work for the year, I took in little cellophane bags of gingerbread to hand out. No-one else showed up. I hung around for a bit, eating gingerbread, then left at lunchtime. I ran around trying to find one of those reindeer so we could recreate this:
Unfortunately there were none to be found in this crapulous city. I panicked that the husband would be disappointed in the meagre collection of stuff I had as presents for him so on Christmas Eve I set out and bought a Weber BBQ. I couldn’t afford it but I rationalised that it was wanted and given we only had one oven to cook a ham, a turkey and a heap of roast veg it was also needed.
The restaurant where the husband has been working was closing after lunch on the 24th for the staff party. They had a small group booking for lunch and they thought they could get rid of them early enough. Not so. The revellers carried on until 4pm. The staff broke world records for cleanup time then settled in for a condensed two hours of eating and drinking. Note to all restaurant patrons: staff have lives too - have some manners. The chef presented us with several dozen Coffin Bay oysters and a giant ocean trout, served simply with lemon and pepper and chunks of rustic bread. It was the best fish I have ever tasted. Ah yes, on the premise of driving the husband home so he could drink, I had managed to invite myself to the lunch. What a treat!!
On Christmas Eve I prepped food (brined the turkey, boiled then marinated the pork belly in soy and garlic), wrapped presents and drank champagne, ate cherries and relaxed. Christmas morning we were woken by my Mum ringing at 8:30am (damn her early morningness) then went back to sleep for a few hours.
Panettone and champagne for breakfast then onto the business of opening presents.
I had taken a photo of the husband in Venice which I loved so much I had it printed onto a 300 x 400mm canvas, I had also purchases him new earrings (after he lost his but then found them again), a bottle of Amaris DeVin, a Bill Bailey collection DVD and of course, the Weber. He was over the moon about the print, saying it made him look cooler than James Dean.
I received a set of weights (unromantic I know, but at my request), a Soda stream – red, a bottle of Green Fairy Absinthe, and a Bill Bailey DVD. Fortunately the DVDs we had bought each other were different, but it was a cute coincidence. I gave the delinquent an Oxfam chook and some foot powder (ain’t I a bitch?) and he gave us a shower curtain and bathmat set – psychoesque blood splattered. Not a bad haul indeed.
I put together the Weber while the husband and the delinquent watched Bad Santa then we wondered how the hell we were going to cook outside in pouring rain. As the eternal optimist I convinced everyone that the rain would stop and all would be well. I peeled the ham, cut the fat, studded it with cloves and glazed it with blood orange and brown sugar. It cooked beautifully.
But the rain continued. Eventually the Weber was positioned precariously on the front door step and we fired it up. After the coals had burned and the porch hadn’t, we put the stuffed (macadamia, prosciutto and cranberry) and wrapped in ham rind turkey in to cook. While we waited I ate prawns and garlic scallops and gleefully made soda water and the husband ate oysters.
Four hours later we shoved the still raw turkey in the oven. Obviously there were things we had yet to learn about webering. Christmas lunch was served at about 7pm with kipfler and King Edward potatoes cooked in duck fat, roast pumpkin, sugar snap peas and spinach.
I had made cranberry sauce from scratch for the first time and it was divine. Simply frozen cranberries, sugar and a splash of cherry brandy boiled until the fruit was cooked (thank you Nigella, kitchen Goddess).

I will never buy the stuff in a jar again. The ham was gloriously flavoured and the turkey was moist and gorgeous. One of the best Christmas lunches I have ever had.
So after all my misgivings it ended up being a lovely day, in spite of the rain. It was relaxed and stress free. There were no frazzled, over tired children to deal with, no bad food or complaints that what we had cooked was “too rich”. Even the dogs behaved themselves and Bela refrained from eating the tree.
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