Early Morning

Her Magazine, February/March 2013
I won my first ever short story writing competition in October 2012 and the prize was to be published in Her Magazine. It is a story about a dog and a business woman. The bio was printed with the short story. 

Sarah painted a confident picture in her designer tracksuit. With her honey-streaked hair swept up in a pony-tail, she jogged with meaning.

As she jogged through the neighbourhood, contentment set in. It was for her, a form of meditation.

She turned the corner, and tripped.

“What?” She looked down to see a small scruffy-looking dog. It didn’t have a collar on and looked lost.

Two brown eyes stared up at her. She glanced around the street. It was dead.

She looked at her watch. It was 7am. Too early to knock on people’s doors.

“Guess I’ll have to take you home.” she said.

She let the dog roam around her small courtyard. It relieved itself.

“Oh, you’re a boy.” She said.

Sarah went inside and filled an empty container with water. The dog lapped it up. She checked the time. 7.15am. She figured around 8am she would start searching for the dog’s owner.

“I have to get ready,” she said to the dog, “I have work.” She closed the back door and went inside. She peaked out of her lace curtains and could see the little dog sniffing outside.

After her shower, she decided on a black pencil skirt, with a crisp white shirt, and black peep-hole shoes. She straightened her hair and smiled at the mirror. Lipstick and understated eyes and she was ready.

She looked at the time. 7.50am.

Sarah went outside and the little dog was lying down. His tail started wagging when he saw her.

“Ok,” she said “Time to find your owner!”

They walked down the street as an old woman clad in her PJs and dressing gown was putting out her trash.

“Is this your dog?” Sarah asked. The woman shook her head.

Curtains parted and muffled giggles followed from two little faces that were pointing and laughing at the little dog that was lifting his leg by their letterbox.

“Come on!” said Sarah, mortified to be seen with an animal that relieved itself in public.

At a block of flats, Sarah knocked on one of the doors. An elderly woman with wispy grey hair shuffled to the door in her pale pink slippers.

 “Oh, what a gorgeous dog!” the old lady exclaimed.

 “He’s lost,” Sarah said “Any chance he might belong to anyone here?”

 “No dogs allowed here dear. Only cats.” She said pointing at the bony black cat curled up on a chair.

Sarah looked at her watch. 8.15am.

“Phone the SPCA,” said the old woman “They open at 10am. I used to do voluntary work there - until my hips started playing up.”  

“Thanks.” Sarah said.

Back at her townhouse she shoved a few papers into her briefcase. She had an important meeting at 9am.

 The dog looked at her with pleading eyes.

“I’ll come back at lunchtime.” she said.

“Sorry,” she added “It’s the best I can do.”

The meeting went exceedingly well. The team was impressed with her latest marketing strategy.

At 10am Sarah phoned the SPCA and arranged to drop the little dog off at lunchtime.

As she ate her chicken wrap on the way home in the car, some of the stuffing fell out on to her white shirt. Her lunchtime had been ruined due to the wanderings of some dog.

When the little dog saw her, he greeted her at the gate.

“It’s okay,” she said “I’m home.” He came up to her and tried to nestle into her legs.

“I’m in my work clothes!” she said, backing away. The little dog looked hurt and lay down.

At the SPCA the little dog was put in his own cage. On his left were three Rottweiler puppies. On his right a young Whippet dog. The little dog whimpered.

“You’ll be fine,” Sarah said, realising she was convincing herself as much as the dog.

She drove straight back to work. Although she was flat-out that afternoon, she kept thinking about the little dog. What if the owner didn’t find the dog? Would anyone want a ratty-looking older dog? Didn’t most people want puppies?

Sarah decided to phone the SPCA at 2pm. No-one had called about the little dog.

That night she found it hard to settle. Would he be warm enough in his cage? Would his puppy neighbours keep him awake?

At work the next day her mind couldn’t help but drift to the little dog. At 10am she called the SPCA. Nothing yet, they said - but sometimes it takes a few days, they reassured her.

She decided that if the dog wasn’t picked up by the end of the week, that she would offer him a home. It felt like a big decision. She was thirty-three years old and had had no dependants up until this point. She wasn’t even sure she wanted children. She was thriving in her marketing career and loved her busy life in Auckland in which she could do as she pleased.

Two days later the SPCA called. A man had phoned up. The dog belonged to his sister, who was in her seventies and was going through the early stages of dementia. She had simply left the backdoor open and the little dog had escaped.

“We had a good chat with the owner’s brother,” the SPCA volunteer said “He has decided to take on the dog. “

Sarah was surprised to feel her heart breaking a little. That little dog had made a big impression. She had somehow been opened up to the world of dog ownership. She decided to wait a few days to see if the feeling passed. If it didn’t, then she’d return to the SPCA and see what dogs were up for adoption.

By Friday it was clear that this urge to take on a dog wasn’t going to pass. It both annoyed and excited her.

On Saturday morning she headed to the SPCA. There was now just one Rottweiler puppy, the young Whippet dog remained and there was a little Shih Tzu as well.

The Shih Tzu immediately came up to her when she stood in front of its cage and licked her hand. Sarah melted.

 “That’s Lacey,” said one of the volunteers. “She’s just a year old. Her previous owners have a toddler and twin six month olds and found managing a dog too much.”

 “Hello Lacey!” she said. Lacey gave her another lick on the land.

At 7am, two weeks later, Sarah was walking Lacey. She enjoyed starting her day with a walk with her new furry-friend who she had bonded with immediately.

Lacey had become part of her life fast. She even came to cafés and sat outside with her drinking from a bowl while she sipped lattes. She was so lovely to come home to after a hard day at work. Which Sarah hadn’t known before – she’d just accepted the pressures of work as part of her life.

Lacey helped her slow down. It was a mutual relationship which both dog and owner both benefited from. Something that wouldn’t have happened had she not stumbled across the lost little dog.

Biography

Lynda Jessen-Tye writes short stories, articles, poetry and is a keen blogger. She wrote a column for two years for the Nelson District Parent Centre Newsletter called New Mum On The Block. She has entered several short story competitions and is currently working on her first book. She lives in sunny Nelson with her husband, their seven year old daughter, a dog and a cat.

Plunket Bonanza November 2012

I shared a stall with my friend Trish today at the Plunket Bonanza, in Hope. It it is the first stall I've had in eighteen months, so it was great to get back on the (painting) horse again! Trish sold some nursery flags but I didn't make any sales this time round. I still had fun getting ready for the stall and it got me painting again - I'll be going into a few more fairs and markets this Summer! Below are some of my new art pieces as well as photos from today's Plunket Bonanza. It wasn't quite the right venue for selling my art as it was primarily second-hand baby gear and children's clothes, but it was easy to set up as the table was provided and it was all indoors.

Mapua Easter Fair 2011

I sold four paintings and two rock paintings at this years Mapua Easter Fair. Below is the art painted for the stall. It was a grey and slightly damp day but as always a relaxing atmosphere. It was great to have Trish on the stall too selling her owls and broaches.

Support Vital Dealing With Autism

Opinion, The Nelson Mail 21 April 2011
Autism New Zealand runs a regular coffee group which is a form of therapy for this mother of a six year old daughter with autism spectrum disorder.

Support Vital Dealing With Autism

My six year old daughter has been invited to a birthday party. Typical in childhood? Not for my daughter, because she is autistic.

Previous birthday party invitations occurred because I knew the families and friendships have been carefully nurtured between my daughter and a couple of children.

So I just about shed a tear when my daughter was invited to a birthday party recently by a girl in her class as I had nothing to do with it. Ok truth be told; I wanted to jump for joy! It is a celebratory milestone around my daughter’s social development as she has struggled socially for most of her short life.

Although my daughter was born healthy, in her toddler years some differences became apparent. The older she got the more obvious those differences became. She was disinterested in other children and was non-verbal until the age of three. She communicated through her behaviour which sometimes was inappropriate and was typically misunderstood.

From the outside it was easy to write it off as bad behaviour. But underneath it all was a child who was overwhelmed socially, suffered from high anxiety and could only handle small doses of exposure to situations that were either noisy or unstructured.

Her undesirable behaviour limited our social interactions at a time when most children’s social worlds are expanding. When she was three and a half years old she was diagnosed with ASD – autism spectrum disorder.

At the time of receiving this diagnosis, I was given a booklet about Autism New Zealand, an incorporated society with charitable status. The booklet contained valuable information such as which services to go in the Nelson region for support and assistance as well as information about coffee group meetings that provide links to other families in Nelson/Marlborough with children and teenagers with autism.

I first started attending the local Autism New Zealand coffee group meetings three years ago. It was the coffee group I knew I belonged to as up to then my experiences of motherhood were significantly different to mothers of neurotypical” children. My daughter didn’t reach many of the milestones dictated by parenting books out there. She didn’t sleep through the night until she was five years old. The beginnings of toilet-training were also significantly later and are still a work in progress.

Other children would play alongside each other as toddlers; my daughter would be off exploring the environment or would be fixated on a gadget. It has been incredibly reassuring being able to connect with parents – mainly Mums - who share many of the same challenges as I do.

We might only see each other at coffee group meetings every six weeks but touching base regularly is such an important, if not therapeutic, part of life with a child on the autistic spectrum. Our children are all different ages, and although they all have autism – no two children with autism are the same.

The coffee meetings are a great opportunity to update each other on our children’s progress, to vent if needed and to just meet up with parents who may be living with the same or similar challenges. There is also a lot of information on hand in the form of workshops and seminars which we are lucky to get in our region. Although one child in every hundred is diagnosed with autism, misunderstandings and a lack of knowledge prevail.

A lot of the time autism is stereotyped yet with autism there is no one size fits all. Classic autism is what often springs to mind when autism is mentioned. There is a fascination with it on the big screen, tele and in books - the autism where an individual is seemingly locked in his or her own world, while rocking in a corner. Movies such as Rain Man and television programmes such as The Big Bang Theory feature characters with Aspergers Syndrome – the kind of autism where intelligent but socially quirky individuals reside. These are two examples of autism but there are many different variations in between.

My daughter’s autism can be described as “high functioning”. She didn’t make the diagnosis for Aspergers Syndrome because her onset of speech was delayed. Being a girl puts her in the minority even within the autism arena as typically it is boys that are diagnosed. Although she is challenged socially, she is naturally social yet many think that autistic children aren’t social beings.

Other struggles are to do with sensory processing (she gets tired and overstimulated easily) and managing emotions (she rarely cries). She tends to internalise her emotions so it often appears as if she is doing just fine.

Living with a child with a high functioning autism is a little like living with Jekyll and Hyde. Jekyll participates fairly well in class, progresses academically and is even beginning to make friends during her second year at school. Hyde comes home most days from school jaded, retreats into herself for an hour or two, and can have explosive meltdowns.

Her autism seems to go in cycles. She can have weeks or months of “doing well” – or at least holding it together in the neurotypical world. Then she regresses back to her first language – autism.

During the last three years there has been a team of specialists on board to help with behavioural issues and to ensure mainstream education works. As grateful as I am for the support, it does take a lot of extra time and energy to meet up with all the specialists.

Many strides forward have been made and without a doubt my daughter wouldn’t be doing as well as she is without all the help, but the challenges remain despite the best efforts to manage my daughter’s autism on a day to day basis. Autism is for life and it is important to connect with other families to gain hope and inspiration. That is why an organisation like Autism New Zealand is vital for families such as ours.

The Tahunanui Arts and Crafts Fair, January 2011

In Term Four last year I enrolled in Painting for The Experienced - a community education course run at Waimea College by Jennifer Murphy. Over eight weeks I created several paintings for the Tahunanui Arts and Crafts Fair. I ended up selling 9 pieces of art - including one piece of rock art on the day. Some of the art sold was created over the last couple of years so it was nice to see it go. Always good to see recent paintings brought too.








It was the first time I had a go at creating a trio of art pieces which was a lot of fun - see the farm setting featured below. It is in my daughters bedroom as she wanted to keep the set! I also had a go at painting cartoons for adults - there were just two in this series: "Why the long face Larry?" and "Happy as Larry". One sold at the Tahunanui Arts and Crafts Fair and the other one an interested customer picked up from home after I removed the word Larry so it just read"Why the long face?"

The fair was a lot of fun - there were three of us the stall . Other products featured for sale were tomato plants, key rings and soft-toy dolls and owls. I have applied for a stall in the Mapua Easter Show but haven't received confirmation about that yet.

Tears for Christchurch

It's four days since the massive 6.3 earthquake hit Christchurch - the one described as an aftershock, five months on from the original 7.1 quake that hit in September. It was and is still a shock to the nation - especially to those with strong connections to Canterbury.

Living in Nelson, which is located slightly over 400 kilometres away, we are situated unnervingly close. Not close enough to have felt the quake on Tuesday - though some claimed to have felt the one in September. However many Nelsonians have ties to Christchurch. I don't think I've spoken to one person post-quake who doesn't have friends or family there. There are also residents here in Nelson who either are from Canterbury themselves originally or who have lived there in the short or long-term. Naturally there have been many stories circulating in Nelson about the quake - stories ranging from a lack of power and water in many households to lucky escapes to those who have lost friends or family members.

Somehow this quake has offered me an opportunity to reflect not just on this as a national tragedy - because as New Zealanders we are all affected - but also on my own connections with Christchurch over the years. I have realised I have visited Christchurch at least ten times over the years and most visits involved a walk around the very CBD that has been destroyed by the quake. It is the only part of Christchurch I know my way around.

I've lived in a few spots in this fine country of ours, but Christchurch was never one of the cities I resided in. Originally from the North Island (a Wellingtonian) I have had two spells at living in the South Island. The first was well over fifteen years ago when I spent a year living in Queenstown. I spent a Winter as a "ski-liftie" working on both The Remarkables and Coronet Peak. I had the time of my life - skiing, snowboarding and partying (as you do in Queenstown as a 20-something). I made a pile of friends and lived by the mountain motto which was "Here for a good time, not a long time." We travelled to Christchurch on occasion for a big city fix as sometimes life in Queenstown got a bit insular. One memorable trip was going to see The Village People at The Town Hall.

Several of my Queenstown friends in that era were from Canterbury. Many of them I haven't been in contact with for years. I have thought about them this week. Some I have contacted and have been assured they are safe. Some I know are probably living elsewhere or are overseas. It is funny how in the face of tragedy time and lost friendships don't matter.

As a North Islander I had at least one ski trip growing up with my family to Mt Hutt. I also had a rather memorable trip to Lincoln University as a kind of support person with the Victoria University debating team in the late-80s. Several of us crashed in the living room floor of a flat on Bealey Ave after a night out in Christchurch.

In 1999 I had two trips to Christchurch when living in Wellington. Winter that year I spent a few days in Christchurch with a local friend who was living in Sumner at the time on the way to Queenstown. In late 1999 I remember a drive to Lyttelton with the same friend along Sumner Road - the road that was severely damaged in the quake.

My husband and I have been living in the South Island, in Nelson for over nine years. In that time there we have had a few trips to Christchurch. We went to Canterbury as part of a Dragon Boat Regatta the first two Summers we were here, I was in a half-Marathon that started in the CBD and went through Hagley Park almost nine years ago, and we had a night in Christchurch during our campervan honeymoon holiday around the South Island seven years ago. Our most recent trip was almost two years ago when we took our daughter to see The Wiggles at the Town Hall. We stayed in a motel near town and spent a lot of time walking around the CBD - in Cathedral Square, lunching at The Dux, looking at markets, visiting the museum and walking through Hagley Park. As always Christchurch was picturesque - we enjoyed the gardens, The Avon River and the historical buildings that have always been the landmarks of Christchurch. Christchurch always came across as a non-threatening city with a relaxed attitude.

So although I never lived in Christchurch, I have gotten to know it reasonably well - I've shopped there, dined there, partied on The Strip, walked around the city and visited The Cathedral many times. Many of my visits to Christchurch were connected to events - sporting events, concerts, or to catch up with friends who had either moved to Christchurch or were from Christchurch themselves. Many of my Canterbarian friends had a lot of pride about their city and were more than happy to show me around. There is of course nothing like seeing a city through a locals eyes. So it is these friends that I think about at this time - even if many of them are long gone from my life; they will always be linked to Christchurch.

I know Christchurch will never be the same - in the way it looks even after rebuilding it and the memory of this quake will linger for years to come. But I know the people there are strong and will get through this despite all that has been thrown their way this week. I have tears for Christchurch on many levels - the city, the people, the history. For the average New Zealander this whole disaster feels a little too close to home, as we are a small country and this is a first for us - to be in a national state of emergency. I know some Canterbarians have left either temporarily or for good. Some have come to Nelson.

In the meantime the rest of the country carries on with life while waiting for updates and hoping for more positive news. The truth is most of us can do very little and so it feels odd to continue with life - to go to work, to the gym, drop off and pick my daughter up from school when I know so many Canterbarians have had their lives disrupted. Like 9/11, I think I will always remember where I was when I heard about the quake - in the car on the way to the gym and then at the gym I realised just how serious the quake was as live images were aired on the tvs at the gym. I finished my work-out with a sinking feeling, knowing that the footage of men and women who were physically harmed as they emerged from destroyed buildings was only the beginning - the beginning of a horror of a week that no Kiwi will forget in a hurry.

For Kieran

For Briana's 2nd b'day

For Sarah's 40th

My first non-Children's painting. I thought Sarah might like a simple flower painting for her trendy Ponsonby villa. She was rapt with it and it seemed to fit in really well.

More personalised art

Personalised Art

I thought I'd have a go at personalising some art as gifts. The first had to be for my daughter (Amelia) - naturally!

Paintings sold at The Founders Fair February 2009 - my first sales!

I didn't actually sell any of my paintings on my first stall at The Annual Richmond Market Day December 2008. It was a browsers market in many ways, and I decided I may as well give it another go. I had just ten paintings and took them along to my next stall at The Founders Fair in February 2009. To my pleasant surprise, eight out of ten of the paintings sold! An Irish couple bought five of these "first generation" paintings and were rapt with them as it as exactly what they'd been looking for. How lovely to think they are now hanging up on their children's bedroom walls on the other side of the world.