Secrets

Hello from the South Coast of Australia, where the seasons are crazy this year and it feels like summer one month into autumn. This weekend, we’re loving our favourite Aussie beach getaway. We’ve got lots of laughing, beach walks, late nights and family poker games going on.

Heaven!

So while I indulge in a family weekend away with two hilarious teenagers and my favourite man, I’m going to introduce you to my Canadian cousin, Jean. She’s smart, humble, relatable, successful and seriously pretty, but my favourite thing about Jean is her beautiful spirit. You can find her here, at her blog Unpickled.

Please let me say that I realise this post may not be for everyone – so if you’re not interested, that’s okay. Big hugs and I’ll see you next week!

Jean’s family to me – I love her! – and she’s also a fabulous human being. Recently she did an amazing interview about the secrets we carry.

I don’t carry the same secret as Jean did, but I’m pretty sure we all carry something.

Approval addiction. People pleasing. Anxiety or excessive worry. Shame. Trauma, pain, or difficult childhood experiences.

Jean’s secret life was like the secret life of a lot of people. Quietly, every day and with a surprising amount of control, she would over-drink in the middle of her hugely successful, stable and happy life. And then she found a way – online, in her own home, in her way – to stop. She’s lived alcohol-free for seven years now, and this is her story. (Click on the image or here!)

Why am I telling you?

Because I didn’t know about the sobriety movement that’s happening online. And since secret drinking is not my struggle, I had no idea there was support and help that was private, non-judgemental and didn’t involve public meetings or labels.

There’s a whole world of support inside our computers that doesn't mean standing up in an AA meeting in the local community hall. And it can work.

Jean’s story is so heartfelt, authentic and humble. She breaks down barriers and shows us how to support secret-keepers. It’s good to up-skill and learn what's out there. It’s good to be available for the people we love. And for ourselves.

Thank you for listening to my sweet cousin! And thank you for opening your heart and mind to all the crazy-beautiful things I share with you, every single week. I blog because I care.

Happy weekend, everyone. You're awesome, whether I know you or not.

Love Catherine x

PS. If a friend forwarded you this email, you can get your own weekly happiness post here. Lots of goodness, once a week.

Waratahs! How can Australia be so beautiful? 

Again, Jean's here at Unpickled (with a world of resources for people you love) and her story is here.

I'm Dreaming of a White (Sandy Beach) Christmas

Our white Christmas is sandy. Yours might be snowy. Whatever the weather, I imagine you right now...sipping bubbly in Australia on Christmas morning or sitting in your party dress or pjs by your tree on Canadian Christmas Eve. 

<Our Canadian Tree...and my little girl. Notice the cockatoo feather?>

Whatever you celebrate -- Christmas or otherwise -- happy holidays!

<And my Aussie beach tree...the only DIY craft project I've ever done. I *might* have crazy glued that wooden piece to my kitchen table. Just a teeny bit.>

Thanks for being here with me :) Every week in my blog, I've tried to give you something you can use. Maybe not pretty or perfect, but useful. I think the world needs a lot more sharing of our wrinkles, freckles, grey hair, and big hearts (cue my beach photo!). And maybe a little less of our picture-perfect lives.

We're all in this together. Growing older and wiser together. And aren't we lucky?

In Grade One, when I was six, my teacher taught us this poem. I've never forgotten it.

“He drew a circle that shut me out.
Heretic! Rebel! A thing to flout.
But Love and I had the wit to win.
We drew a circle that took him in.”

— Edwin Markham, American poet, (1852-1940)

All your life you'll be drawing circles, she told us. Draw yours to bring other people in. For me, that's what my blog is. A way to spread some happiness and draw my circle around you. 

Thanks for seeing the world through my eyes. May you have the good health and happiness to draw your own circles of love in 2017...and help everyone win.

Be blessed. You deserve it.

Catherine xx

When It's Meant To Be...

We've been on a beach holiday for a couple of days. Australia, you are a beauty queen.

Sparkly ocean:

Scruffy, lovable kangaroos:

Deserted white sand beaches at twilight.

I see it so clearly because I'm an immigrant. Australia has opened her arms to me. 

Want to hear a surprising story?

My father wanted to migrate here from the Canadian prairies in the 1940s. He was a struggling farmer; he thought he'd try his luck on a sheep station in Australia. But my mother (also named Catherine Greer) was too in love with Canada. She didn't want to leave her family or her country, everything she knew as home.

So his was a dream, stilled.

Fast forward 50+ years. I met my dashing naval officer, who asked me to marry him. Then he said, 'But...I'm moving to Australia.' Back then, he was a navigator of warships, headhunted by the Royal Australian Navy.

I said yes. To everything: marriage, Australia, adventure, change.

Taking flight is hard. Wobbly, but good.

I like to think, when I look at my Australian family and remember my father's dream, that it was meant to be. That I was meant to be Australian.

This week I got a call. The kind that makes you run around a shopping mall and scream while calling your girlfriends. (Or maybe that's just me??) A picture book I wrote, Jacaranda Snow, about child poverty in Australia, was selected from a slush pile by a fabulous publisher.

(This is how it works: thousands of manuscripts languish in the slush pile at every publishing house. To get chosen is a MIRACLE. But that's only the first cut. The editor calls you and says he/she loves it BUT they have to fight for their choice in a monthly editorial meeting. It's like winning a scholarship to a major university. Or finding the person of your dreams using a dating website. Hard, hard, hard. But possible.)

I hope she wins.

I hope Jacaranda Snow is published because I wrote it for Australia: for all her invisible kids, the four kids out of 28 in every classroom who live with poverty every day.

So as I was in the mall screaming into my iPhone to Jules (you know Jules Van Mil, the stylish writer from my blog), she said:

I hope it's meant to be!

I wonder if -- all those years ago -- Australia opened her arms to me so I could open people's eyes to those invisible children.

Maybe.

Maybe not.

But even if I have to weather a disappointing NO, Australia has been an incredible YES to my family.

Thank you for holding us safe in your strong, sandy arms.