Adrienne Jerram

Adrienne Jerram

Saturday, April 30, 2011

Ten things I like about me: 5 - I'm a great mother

Not so long ago this is probably something I never would have written about myself.

The proof of the pudding, is however, in the eating. And my daughter is everything I hoped she would be. Kind, passionate, beautiful, genuine, quick-whitted, and a great shopper. ***. And, while I didn't by any means do it alone, I know I put together a pretty good piece of her.

It's taken courage and strength to let her go and be her own person, to allow her make mistakes. Tempting as it was to cosset her, I didn't and I'm glad. There is so much pleasure in watching her grow and learn on her own terms, in her own way. 

She's a great teenager and will soon be a fantastic adult and I was one of the people that made the wise choices that gave her the space to be that way.

*** Well everything but clean, but clean came pretty low down the list.

Sunday, April 24, 2011

Ten things I like about me 4: I'm creative

I've always admired sculptors and their ability to eek a form from something previously shapeless. I marveled at their skill that I so obviously lacked. For years I thought the Gods of creativity had denied me. Then, thanks largely to a broken heart, Kate Walker and Jo Cohen I discovered writing.

I have the stories I want, no need, to write lined up in my head like peak time buses down George St. Some of them I've written. Others I just toss around my head whenever I have a spare moment.Some are fleeting, I've no sooner thought about them than they're gone. Others are more persistent, sleeping  most of the time, only to poke their heads out from under the covers whenever my life gives them a nudge, whispering their stories with deafening clarity and voice.

Friday, April 22, 2011

Ten things I like about me: 3 - I think people are good

I don't know how, where or why we first form our opinions of the nature of human beings, but somehow, despite evidence to the contrary on the news every night, I've ended up with a belief that people are basically good.

I don't care that I might be labelled naive, or gullible, I'm always going to think the best of you. Ask me to look, I'll see your good side every time.

When you manage a team you can either think they are a lazy bunch of good for nothings who are in for the pay or you can cherish them, nurture them, go on a journey with them. I choose the second path.

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Ten things I like about me: 2 - I saved a school

Okay, so I didn't save it on my own, but I was part of the small core group that did, and I can honestly say that if I hadn't been involved, that school might not be there now.

It was 2001 when I tuned into the news and heard my daughter's school, along with some of the most disadvantaged schools in our area, had been slated for closure. They expected to get away with it, and if not for a handful of inner-west die-hards like me they just may have.

It took two years, two reviews, several media events (including one involving the King's Cross Bikers), Australia's best known sculptor, a parliamentary inquiry, an Alan Jones intervention, a serendipitous meeting with a demographer and, eventually, a looming election for the government to realise we had a point and decide to keep the school open.

The closure was an injustice, not just against me personally, but against the community. The government picked us because they thought they would get away with it. Over three hundred children now attend that school, which also boasts high parent participation, an organic garden and exceptional results in the basic skills test.

I'm glad that we won, but more than that I'm glad that we fought and kept on fighting even when others told us to give up. I'm a fighter and won't stand for injustice. And that's definitely something worth liking about me.

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

This is why I'm hot!

I was brought up Scottish and I would like to say, as only a Scot could that we're not the most expressive of people. In fact, dour is perhaps the best adjective to describe us. We take our porridge with salt, need I say more.

At Mt Colah Public School a girl's worst crime was to love herself. ** I can see it now, hanging out in the giant gnarled and knotted roots of the flame tree, watching a willy-willy toss a faded twistie pack across the playground  'Her? Nah I don't want to hang out with her, she loves herself'.

Put these two together and you find a person who seldom utters a good word about herself. So, in order to unleash unprecedented positivity, for the next ten days I am going to blog about the top ten things I love about me.

Thing to love number one:
I'm persistent. Give me a task and I'll finish it, build a wall and I'll scale it. I get through, I tough it out, the word 'can't' is not in my vocabulary. It might not be perfect, but it will be done. I get it from my Dad *** My Mum calls me 'Miss Stickability'. I take it as a compliment.


** And being a 'lemon'. If you were good looking (and didn't 'love yourself') the only way not to be a 'lemon' was to pash a boy behind the dunny block. Harsh times.

*** My Dad spent 5 years building a 30 foot yacht in the backyard after work. An hour here, two hours there, until it was done. Not perfect, just done. I remember the neighbours being a little surprised when it floated, and even more surprised when, years later, it took them on a year-long circumnavigation of Australia.

Saturday, April 2, 2011

The ballerina within

It is not often we get to live a childhood dream. Even rarer is the chance to live a childhood dream we never knew we had. Let me explain.

When I was growing up I had the only mother I knew who didn't sew. We had a sewing cupboard at home; anything that went in there was never worn again. I was the kid with the sticky-tape school uniform hem. **

The consequence of this was that I was banned from taking any dance class, particularly ballet which was sure to result in an end-of-term concert before which parents (read mothers) would be presented with material and a pattern and asked to produce a costume.

My mother was, of course, saving me from disaster. My lack of coordination was legendary.

I remember watching as the girl across the road drew shimmering, pink, pointe-shoes from a silk pink shoe bag and explained that she had graduated from demi-pointe to pointe. She also owned a tutu and leg warmers and one of those pink stretch wraps that ballerinas used to keep warm, a pink stretch headband and a picture of Dame Margot Fontaine. ***

So imagine my surprise when I had the chance to dress as a ballerina for a fancy dress party and my inner ballerina took over. For the first time in my life I entered a dance shop, bought shoes and a tutu and in a crazy fit of wanting, a pair of baby-pink ballerina tights. That night I put them on and spun around the kitchen, I never wanted to take them off. And at the party, well I spun and spun, I flew into a man's arms and he lifted me effortlessly above his head.

We never really grow up. Inside all of us is the childhood ballerina, just bursting to get out


** My mother is a small, fiercely-intelligent Scotswoman who raised three small children thousands of miles away from her family. There was very little she wouldn't do for us, but she knew her limit, and the sewing was it. Mum worked full time as soon as I (the youngest) went to school. Like any Scot she was economical and efficient, particularly with her time. Perhaps the most valuable lesson she taught me was how not to iron. Step one - don't buy anything that needs to be ironed. I remember her clearly eyeing a chambray shirt, rubbing the fabric between fingers that so much resembled my own, screwing up her nose and walking away with a swift, 'Needs ironing'.

*** I once hit this girl over the head with her own worn teddy bear until her nose bled. I don't remember why.