TONTS. - Queer Joy, Motherhood & Creativity with Tess Lehman

Episode Date: February 25, 2024

Tess Lehman is a photographer, creative, proudly queer and a mother of 3 living in Newcastle, Australia. Her story is honest and raw and an example of what happens when we have the courage to really live a creative life and find ourselves with vulnerability, humour and joy. In this episode we talk about Tess' coming out story and why it took her to midlife to acknowledge she is queer, what it was like to completely change her life, single parenting, motherhood and identity and also her ADHD diagnosis. We also deep dive into her love of boiler suits. Of which I definitely share. Who doesn't love a onesie with pockets?You can find more from Tess Lehman at https://tessdoes.com/ and on instagram at https://www.instagram.com/tessdoeshttps://www.clairetonti.comhttps://www.instagram.com/clairetonti/You can contact the show at [e-mail]: RAW CollingsSocial Media: Maisie JG Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I would like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which I create, speak and write today. They were Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation and pay my respect to their elders past, present and emerging. Always was, always will be Aboriginal land. Have you ever felt like maybe there's another life out there for you? That maybe you're more than the place that you are in currently? And have you felt that there are lots of barriers around you to seeking that career change or that life change or

just letting people see more of who you really are? Well, I have a story for you. Tess Lehman is a photographer from Newcastle who emailed me out of the blue with such a great story. I had to interview her for the show. This is Tonce, by the way. My name is Claire Tonte. I'm your host, and this is a podcast of in-depth interviews about emotions and the way they shape our lives. From activists to experts to thinkers to deeply feeling humans, each week I speak to mostly women and diverse voices about their stories and what a privilege it is. And before I jump in to introduce my incredible guest this week, gosh, she has a story that will knock your socks off. I've got some housekeeping things to let you know about.

I'm doing a regular-ish newsletter. So if you'd like to sign up and find out more about what I'm doing, get a little letter from me, some recommendations and also details about my podcast and upcoming shows, you can sign up in the show notes below. And I've got details of all my upcoming events on my website, claretonte.com. But these are the places that I will be singing and telling stories so far this year. Feb 26th, I'm going to be doing a Mums and Bub class with music therapist Elizabeth McLean from Vital Voices. March 2nd, I'll be in Moela Civic Centre with Sharni Dickens. March 3rd, I'll be in Shepparton, St. Augustine's with Sharni and Tess from Nurture Doula Tribe. And then I'm coming to Newcastle. I've never been there before and I'm so excited to come

and see this beautiful town. I'll be there from March 22nd to 24th. So I'm doing two parent-friendly morning shows where babes in arms are really welcome on Saturday the 23rd at 11.30am and Sunday the 24th, 11.30am at The Rex. There'll be cushions on the floor. There'll be lots of comfy seats. Breastfeeding is really welcome. We'll be talking about the complex transition to motherhood and singing lots of songs. So little babies will love the music. And we'll also be looking at the highs and the lows of this complex thing we call motherhood. And then I'll be doing my full show 6pm at the Underground, the Grand Hotel on the Friday night, the 22nd, and then on the Saturday night, the 23rd at 6pm, Underground at the Grand.

So I'll be singing through my whole album, which you can listen to on Spotify, YouTube, or Apple Music. It's a story of love and loss, of overcoming birth trauma, of the complexity of mothering as a creative and just that whole human journey that matrescence, you know, the transition to motherhood is. It's huge in size and scope. Just as adolescence takes seven to eight years to transition through, so does matrescence. And because it happens primarily to women, we just don't know about it in the same way. That same sense of identity loss and confusion and high levels of hormones swinging around everywhere that change so much of who we are deeply at our core, just as adolescence does that to us, so does matrescence. And I just love to

sing this album and tell you about it. So I'm doing that at the Newcastle Fringe and I've got more shows coming up in Geelong and Colac in May and then I'm coming back to the UK in June but more details to come of all of those shows. For now though, let's get cracking with this week's episode and gosh this guest as I mentioned her story will blow you away. Tess Lehman is a photographer, a writer and a dreamer who lives on our buckle land in New South Wales, that's in Newcastle. She lives for real stories about real people and has yet to meet a chance she didn't want to have a crack at, but that might be her ADHD. A single parent for a while and proudly queer, she shares her story in the hope that others find the freedom they dream of late at night. Born in the 80s, she grew up in the country and has a can-do

attitude for life. She loves coffee, is a mum of three, and feels that baking is therapy. Now, Tess is hilarious and funny. And sometimes in life, you meet someone whose brain just feels so familiar. We both have brains that are really challenged by things like schedules and time and are constantly followed by creative ideas and adventures. And Tess's story moved me so much. She reached out to me after she listened to my Holly Ringland episode. And if you haven't listened to that from my previous season, I really recommend you going to listen to that episode with Holly. I ended up putting it as two parts because I thought it was such a rich conversation.

Tess is such a joy and I immediately felt like I'd met a friend. Here she is, Tess Lehman. Can you just say that again? That was so great. All the gear and no idea. Yeah, that's me every time. The other thing I always like to do is just build the plane while flying. Yeah. That's what I tend to be doing constantly. Just like, yep, I'll say yes before I'm ready or know how to do a thing totally and then figuring it out as we go along that's my whole life I love that why not why not be like that for sure so thank you so much for coming on tons I'm so excited for this conversation you reached out to me via email because you listened to my Holly Ringland interview on the podcast I loved that yeah I wanted to ask you

what you loved about it I loved the storytelling aspect like the way she was sharing and then the way you were sharing I loved that you were both showed up it was that one you started singing wasn't it on the actual episode yeah because I've listened to a few but I was pretty sure it was that one and I just felt that same connection or, you know, when you see yourself in someone else, like I was like, oh, showing up, being vulnerable, like I spent years of not doing that, like was really good at it. And now, like the last five years, I really have been doing that. And it's so when I see it, I just feel so like stoked

for those people. Does that make sense? sense yes a thousand percent because it's like oh you figured it out now you know there's joy on the other side of like setting yourself free yeah and I just am always so fucking happy to hear anybody sorry I don't know if I'm allowed to say totally yeah okay great I don't have that button uh I'm always just so stoked to hear anyone that's created that for themselves or created freedom for themselves or figured any of that out and then I think too when you were sharing about motherhood and you're sharing about singing and I think you've shared about it in other places too but that finding pieces of yourself through creativity or or

reclaiming yourself after having kids is such a big, tricky piece. So anytime I hear any of that, I'm like, I did it! Yeah! I feel like that's so much because I think our culture often wants women to lose themselves once they have kids and the narrative is then, well, you don't matter anymore or something. And then there's so many layers of unpacking, right,

of guilt about wanting to still have your own identity outside of that mum role that's so huge and feels kind of like controversial, which is strange. It shouldn't because I don't think it happens to blokes in the same way. But, yeah, bloody great. so thank you for reaching out I wanted to ask you now about your story because it's fascinating do you I know there's a big life shift that happened to you in 2019 yeah but talk me through your story well it's so funny so yesterday I randomly accidentally had a chat to someone at a bookshop who turned out to be a publisher and she's like, if you put that in a book, that'd sell. And I was like, oh, thanks.

I know, it's always like, is that a good thing? I don't know. And I always just think it's not that interesting. And then I talk to people and realise that it's not that common. So five years ago, I was renovating a house, doing that thing of having three small children and desperately trying to claw back some sense of self and not knowing where to start. So I'd had a co-working space and I'd run these big women in business events because I thought, entrepreneur, that sounds like me. And then I was like, oh, actually, I don't want to do that.

And then I was like, right, well, I don't want to live here. We were living in Noosa at the time. And I was still with the kid's dad and he worked away and the kids were so I have three there was seven five and three so not only did I decide to renovate the house I also thought it'd be a really good idea to pull them out of school and homeschool them at the same time which it turns out was not a good idea was just a lot actually just a lot there's a lot there's a lot to pile on and I was painting white walls and 3am and wrestling with self and I was like shit I don't really like this life that I've chosen for myself and created for myself and if I don't change it this is going to be the life

I live for the next 50 years and I don't want to do that and also I don't change it, this is going to be the life I live for the next 50 years. And I don't want to do that. And also, I don't think I'm straight. And also, I don't know really who I am after having children because who I was before children no longer exists. And I'm desperately trying to figure out who I am now with no real roadmap back because there isn't a back because that person doesn't exist and so so painting white walls was the big like ah fuck no one's coming to save me I'm gonna have to do this myself and that means a lot of really tricky full-on conversations for the next bit so I just got to the end of the renovation and kind of detonated my whole life and was like I don't want to do this anymore I think you're great but this isn't working also I think I might

be gay and he was very unsurprised with that revelation he was like yeah I know I was like oh okay cool um also I don't want to live in Noosa anymore doesn't I don't want to do that but that doesn't feel good and he was like okay so bless him he was so kind and loving and sweet about all of it while I just tossed off identities like fucking t-shirts yeah and then the next two years I like picked up a camera again which I hadn't had for like six or seven years started working as a photographer found out the single parenting's very hard fell in love with a girl you know all of the things yeah that's so interesting that he knew that you were queer. And did he just never think to say it to you or never have that conversation?

Well, he just was like, it's always been there, Tess. Like you've always talked about women. And I was like, yeah. I think the thing was I just had like decided that being queer was for other people. I didn't have the language to describe my own feelings about it and then I just pushed any queerness as far as I could out of my life. So I was like a total dick about it.

I shut down all of my feelings. I, like, rarely cried for, like, ten years, just, like, you know, pack it right down. The feelings can die, which didn't really work, turns out. Yeah. And I just allowed myself no, like I would read no queer literature, I would listen to no queer songs. Like if a queer storyline happened in a movie, I was out.

Like I just couldn't bear it. While also being very supportive of family members that had come out as queer wow so like I could allow it for other people I just couldn't allow it for me and I think one of the moments I was just like oh fuck I was sitting with a group of mates and kids were sort of playing and um one of them is a cousin and she was saying about this date she'd been on with this girl and how great it was and I just remember feeling absolute envy. Wow. So envious and just like burning with it.

And later we talked about it and she was like, yeah, I could see there was something on your face but I hadn't seen that look before on you and I didn't really know what the feeling was but I could see there was something. Wow. Why do you think that was that you were so afraid of of that part of yourself it sounds like to me yeah I think that's a pretty good and my therapist would probably agree with you um so I grew up in

country New South Wales and we went to church every Sunday and my mum played the organ at the Catholic church and I have these memories of like I remember I must have been 15 or 16 and we were in the city we were in Brisbane I just started boarding school and I was walking with my dad and there was two women in front of us holding hands and I remember him saying something and you know he probably didn't really think about it he still says stuff stuff to me sometimes and I'm like, oh, mate, that's not so great. Yeah, and he'll be like, oh, sorry, sorry, now, sorry, you know. But he was like, oh, that's disgusting.

And I remember even at the time pulling him up and being like, dad, it's not any different. But I still couldn't let myself have that because I knew there would be consequences, you know. Like I knew that my relationship couldn't let myself have that because I knew there would be consequences you know like I knew that my relationship couldn't stay together I mean it was already rough but like it couldn't stay in its form I knew that I would have family members that would have big reactions to it and they did you know like I knew there would be consequences for me being queer and then I just

got so sick of not allowing myself that the consequences seem bearable more than shoving myself into a box that didn't really fit me in any form. It's like you get to a point where the box is so painful that it's better to get out of there, scarier in the box than out of the box. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it's interesting that you talk about sort of shying away from anything to do with queer art and literature and it reminded me of how I felt about singing which I know is strange because singing is not being queer at all no but there's similarities in like what we will allow ourselves to experience yeah because it's about deeply who you are. And for me, music, like I couldn't

listen to music for, I started music, so in my early 20s, I was singing and writing. And then I got into teaching and was using that as a tool in my classroom. And then I had kids and running a company. And I just felt like so deeply that that was the thing I loved the most, that it was almost too scary and also too painful to look at like I just didn't really listen to music I didn't go to live music for like 15 years which I remember saying to my brother once and he was like well that's the fucking weirdest thing I've ever heard you mustn't love music that much and I'm like oh yeah you're probably right god I am weird and it wasn't until I got to that point really like at the beginning of last year I got

long COVID and postnatal depletion and had a baby during COVID and was so broken that the only thing I could do was listen to music it was like there was nothing else left and that was the road back to finding myself and then that freedom that comes and this joy when you hit the thing that really is you and you have to do all of that digging of layers and I know in terms of sort of music and singing and finding a voice that's a very different path but I think it still goes into that identity and self-worth about, as a woman, what we are allowed to have in our lives, you know. And then that, yeah, the deep kind of layers that you do,

you have to throw off of the mask kind of and becoming this whole other person. My singing teacher, who's amazing, who helped me through a lot of it, she said what's going to be interesting is you'll probably lose some friends through this process of realising you're an artist because they're not going to know this person that you've been hiding for so long. But also then the people that come into your life from that who see you like waving this big flag, you're like, I'm this person. I'm awesome and I'm weird and I'm great and I do strange things and I don't understand admin and I can't time's really strange for me and but I just want to make art all the

time and like ignore everything else and and then the people find you like this kind of like magnet and it's amazing what happens in your life and I guess that's a long way of asking you has that been the case for you that then you've attracted other things into your life from realising who this person Tess actually is? Yeah. And a lot of it too was just like that clawing back of self after you have kids because you put so many things in front of your own needs. So like, you know, I had a four-year-old, a two-year-old and a baby at one point.

Like, yeah, it's a lot. Yeah, it's a lot yeah it's a lot and I wasn't really okay in hindsight like look back and I'm like this is not the actions of a person who was okay and you just there's so many like you know I was writing last night and I was like you can't go to the toilet without a kid on your lap you can't have a shower without a kid holding onto your leg like the the just the needs of your or even like who am I becomes like well you're a mum I was like okay great so if I can put that aside now now who am I it's like well you're queer okay cool but like who am I it's like fuck man I don't know I've got to figure it out like I've got to figure out who this person is.

So, yes, coming out as gay and I had like a three-month thing with a girl and then I was so giddy and I was so over and in my feelings and just like heightened. And then the first lockdown happened and that relationship ended and I kicked a housemate out and solo parenting and it was pretty full on. Anyway, and then a while later I had met the girl who I've been with now for two years and I am more grounded.

I know what or who I am. I know what I want or more of what I want. Some days I don't know what the fuck I want. But, you know, like I think parenting, it just is so consuming, especially when they're small and you lose so much sense of self. So, yeah, coming out of that and then coming into queerness and then coming into like calling myself a creative, which I really struggled with, and then photography and art. And it's just like all of these pieces of identity that I didn't have that I now have. And yeah, that can be confronting, but also the

people that have come into my life. Like I moved to Newcastle at the start of last year, which was a big move. We were living in the Northern Rivers. I didn't really know anyone here. I was moving mostly on a feeling but also for high school options for kids, you know. Like it's a long way to go on a fucking feeling. Only way to live. Oh, life.

And I had people in my life, including my girlfriend, who had only been dating for six months and I was like, oh, look, I'm sorry but I know you live in Brisbane and I live near Byron. And I think I've got to move to Newcastle. And she was just like, are you kidding? Like, you can't just decide that. And I was like, yeah, I know. But like, I kind of have. And then within like an eight week period, I'd packed up, moved here. And I remember at one point sitting on the floor of the bedroom, just going like, what fuck, have I done? I don't know if this was a good idea.

I don't know if I can pull this off. I don't know if I'm like dropping all of the balls. And turns out I haven't dropped all of the balls. I've been swept up in this beautiful community. I have these incredible friends. My kids are a part of this community. Like I had a mate pick up a kid and take him to soccer training and drop them back you know which I just like it's community like I haven't known and I have wanted for such a long time but I don't think I could have until I knew myself as well as I do now or maybe I couldn't allow myself to or I didn't know what that community could look like but yeah it's been

it's been a wild few years of figuring that out and you know lonely like it's been fucking lonely in parts because you're trying to wrestle with that piece of yourself that you don't really know who it is yet even so how do you fucking have friends with that yeah yeah it's so true but I'd much rather be in that space of figuring it out than hiding you know and pretending and I no longer have time for friends like that, even though I deeply care about them. I also, it's really hard when people meet you and they're sending in a representative of themselves,

not themselves. Does that make sense? Yeah. And then you can't connect with them and you're out here with your big open heart and all the shit that's happened to you and all the fucked up things and they're like, I don't know, what do you think about this stuff? And they're just like, oh, well, you know, I have gone to Ikea and I bought that shelf that was excellent in my house and I'm good.

How are you? And you're like, oh, okay. You know, it is, it's finding that real connection. And I think that happens through taking risks, right? And moving somewhere new and following your intuition i think sometimes as women we're taught that that gut feeling is crazy or not real and i'm just no longer buying into that i think the world is so much more magic and interesting than we've been led to believe by patriarchy and our consumerist culture and capitalism and all of that stuff. Like it's just not linear. There's so much more out there, right? Like even the moon. I mean, there's just so, we're cyclical beings and it's all connected.

And, yeah, there's been so many experiences I've had since I've started living this way and also acknowledging being an artist and a creative, that just makes me really believe that that little voice that was telling me move to Newcastle, that's not an accident, that's a voice you should listen to, which is also kind of scary at the same time, like terrifying as well. Also, like sometimes you're like, is that the voice or is this a different voice that's just telling me random shit that's going to really fucking throw me? I don't know.

Sometimes I can't tell the difference. Actually, that is so 100% true. Hey, I have a question to ask you about boiler seats. Why do you love boiler seats? I think it is so I've had a massive style change from mum working Noosa to creative queer still a mum a big piece of that has been the clothes that I wear like I don't really own any of the clothes that I owned in Noosa I gave most of it away I used to wear a lot of stripes and um and like I still had occasionally like I remember this one outfit that I used to wear a lot of stripes and um and like I still had occasionally like I remember

this one outfit that I used to do school pickup in because I just loved the looks that I'd get was a black shirt with a motorbike on it and a black denim skirt with rips all in it and big old red lippy like I wore lippy every day in Noosa I haven't worn like I wear lippy once a year now if I feel like it you know so the boiler suit thing is like you can put one on. It's got pockets. I don't have to worry about where my legs are, which is amazing because I am this person who sits on a chair and one fucking knee is up and the other leg is like over the side, you know.

Love that. It's great for work because if I'm shooting, I tend to move around a lot. I'm trying to get some different angles, so I'm up and I'm'm down and having pockets for work things is like I can just yeah so I really do I love boiler suits so much I have um I have like 10 but I've only bought one new all of them are vintage or like secondhand or marketplace I get on my yeah anyway my girlfriend thinks that there might be a hyper fixation she could be right I don't know yeah but you know it's a good thing to have a hyper fixation I reckon oh yeah yeah secondhand boiler suits like of all the fixations I feel like that's a pretty healthy one to have considering some of the ones I've had in the past and you know it stops me getting new tattoos so

that's probably a good thing too yeah did you have tats before you came out I had one she has I had an awful uh five point star on my hip bone that was very stretched by childbirth it now looks like a mangled starfish that's been through the wash a few times like it's on a lean and bit stretched and doesn't doesn't really know how how a straight line looks anymore that's just my whole body after kids i feel just a mangled stuff is continue yeah it does it just like it really messes with your body and then i you know i got really sick every pregnancy and then i breastfed and so like my body like copped it for a solid i don't know six years but yes so I started I got actually I was not sure I got one tattoo the year before I split up with my ex and came out as gay I got one little um jasmine I don't know if you can say that flower just a very small taste and then after I came out as queer I was like I wanted all of the

tattoos so I've got a big piece with peonies and moths on my um left arm and then on my right arm I have these gum leaves and I don't know if you can see that um they're called silver blossoms but it definitely was a part of reclaiming myself you know like even that like I didn't want to look too queer like I cut off all my hair and then I've grown it back out again you know like all of these this identity thing we can get so caught up in like what we look like which I definitely do but I had such a fear of looking too queer and now that yeah like I was like I remember having a haircut once and being like oh no I look gay like yeah sweetie because you are yeah it's not whether you look gay or you don't look gay you kind of just are gay so stop freaking out about it what was the moment like

what was the real catalyst that made you go I'm queer I'm coming out like was there something well so the best part of this story is before I came out I hadn't even kissed a girl before I had sex with a girl for the first time I hadn't kissed a girl she didn't know that thankfully because I think it would have been way too much pressure. No, it was that if I thought about fantasies, I often was fantasizing about a woman, but it wasn't I wasn't the woman. I was fantasizing about a woman. Does that make sense?

And so in my head, I had had sex with many women before I ever actually did and often faceless, like I never had a face. And then the first year I came out, which was such a confirmation for me, so I had this person, someone's wife, text me late at night, drunk, like I've got a crush on you and I was openly saying I was queer at this point and so she like sent me this text and I was like oh because I had a crush on her but I'd shut it down because I was like you can't have a crush on a straight married woman that's fucked up that needs to stay inside your head that's not an outside thought and so we never kissed we never

did anything like in my head we did lots of things but in real life nothing ever happened but a couple of months later because it's like she was like had had this drunken confession and they didn't want to do anything about it which is totally fair enough and I could see in her who I was or who I would have been if I hadn't have made the choice to say out loud I'm gay. And she was so constricted by the choice or the life she'd made herself or the choices she'd made. Well, she looked constricted. I don't know whether she actually was or whether that's true for her,

but the bit I saw in her that I could see for myself was like, oh, if I hadn't have chosen this, I would still be living that life and I am so grateful that that is not the choice that I made even with all of the hardness even with all of the like lonely crazy whatever whatever whatever friends family all of that I am still so fucking relieved so relieved that I that that voice inside me was like you might be pretty gay mate don't know if you've noticed why why is it is that the case that really why is that because if I hadn't made that choice I would probably still be in a relationship that I like the father of my kids is a darling person very sweet very kind very loving great with the kids like he genuinely is a lovely person and he's still a mate but if I had I would have shut

down that part of myself for so many more years and I would have kept looking outside of myself for answers and for identity and for emotional payoffs instead of looking within myself. And I fucking love my life now. Like I really do. I get up, I do work that I love. I have a partner that I love. I'm a better parent, you know, for having figured this shit out, not shit, but like figured out this piece. And like, I didn't really have, you know, I just had this feeling that life could be different and that I, I just wasn't, I just, I don't think I was straight. Like I just was like, I feel more connection and turned on to thinking about women than I do about men.

And then when I had sex with a woman for the first time, it was someone that I wasn't even that attracted to. Like I wasn't feeling super tingly and like, oh, my God, I'm so in love with you, whatever, whatever. And I still felt like it made more sense than sex with a bloke. Wow. I was just like, oh, fuck. So it wasn't something that was wrong with me turns out it

just was is you yeah I'm just I'm not broken and fucking rubbish at sex I just was having it with the wrong people or the wrong gender yeah turns out turns out and imagine like because I imagine there would be people who would have said what about your kids like how are they going to feel about this what are you doing for them and also that narrative of like the perfect mother and what that looks like what do you think this identity reclaiming or what you've done and moved and all that what has that given your kids I think one of the things like one of the points I remember thinking like those white wall discussions I was having with myself in my head was like what the fuck am I modeling for them is this is this what I'm modeling for them I'm

modeling a life where I'm unfulfilled I'm hiding away parts of myself I am sticking in a relationship that isn't currently working like like is that what I'm showing them life is yeah because I don't want to do that and that even was like more of a motivator than anything else and it's interesting because now you know they are probably the most solid they've been in some time I work really hard to be a decent parent. Like, you know, I think I do mostly a pretty good job. There's days where I do a shit job like everybody else, but I try really hard and, you know, I will tell them like, I actually don't know how to do this bit. Like this is my first time of doing this. I'm not sure. I'm not, I'm not sure I'm doing a good job of it. So like,

I'm going to try it and if it doesn't work, we'll try a different way but I'm trying really hard. I think it is the best choice I could have made for my kids because my parenting is better because I'm better within myself. I'm less likely to be frustrated at little things because I'm better within myself. I've found joy outside of them and identity outside of them so I can show up and be more present with them, which I don't always do a good job of. Like sometimes I'm on my phone for fucking two hours.

Like I'm not saying I'm perfect by any stretch of the imagination. I'm not. But I do think when I am present and when I am with them and when I am like their parenting and aware I am a better parent for having figured all of the identity piece out. Yeah, I totally agree. Because I no longer believe that idea that as parents we should be perfect because we're not raising perfect kids because they're human just like us. They're little humans, all the same stuff that's going on for us the fragility

the questioning ourselves they're like making mistakes they're like waking up grumpy and like hitting someone or yelling at someone that you wish that you didn't like all of that worry about who am i and all of that joy and all of that confusion about just being a human is wrapped up in these tiny little people. And then the idea that as a parent you're just supposed to model them perfection I think only leads to a lack of connection because you're not really seeing them and they're not really seeing you. And also that gives them a message that like, well, there's something wrong with me because look at my mum.

She's perfect and I'm broken or I'm confused or I don't really know what I'm doing. And I just think you're giving your kids a gift by doing that because I think you then, there's a line, so funny, I was looking up for this interview today at your Instagram and some of your writing and you wrote, there's no such thing as a broken home. And this little phrase jumped out at me, perfectly imperfect, which is a line in one of my songs,

Lullaby, that I wrote for my kids, that you don't have to be perfect. You don't even have to be good. You know, I will love you for always, just so you know, whoever you are, wherever you go, you know, I just want you to be free and I think you're modeling that and that is such a gift I just think great keep bloody going you know thank you because I think because I just think where it's so humans are endlessly strange and weird creatures that are so bad for ourselves in so many ways.

Like we're just so self-destructive, you know. We also really harden ourselves. I just think like kids are that but just smaller. Yeah. And also they don't come with an understanding of anything really, you know. They get here and they're like this is fucking weird you know yeah i don't know if you guys know did you notice it's a bit weird you know like they don't come here fucking understanding that like a and b fucking mean c or whatever like

they don't you know they're trying to learn so much. And, you know, like I've sort of said to friends and I've written in the past, it was just like they're allowed a bad day. Like you're allowed a bad day, they're allowed a bad day, we're all allowed to wake up a little bit pissed off or grumpy or upset or whatever because, like, we're all here having this fucking experience and we're all trying our best, you know. My sister once said to me oh my god when one of my kids was three and was just in this stage of like really tricky parenting you know well actually

if that kid was three it was that year that I was doing the renovation and homeschooling and it was just it was fucking hard work and would do things like stand at the bookshelf and put the hand at the side of the books and just like crawl the books onto the floor you know just like random destructive frustrating shit and I remember complaining to my sister about it and she was like sweets that kid did not wake up and decide how can I fuck with my mother today and I was like you sure I'm not entirely convinced they haven't had a little meeting before I woke up to decide how can we fuck with her today. I am not convinced that that is true.

Pretty sure there's been a 4am meeting and then a 4.30 wake up just to really see if I'm on my game today. But, yeah, you know, they don't. They're just like they're doing their best we're doing our best like that's it isn't it it's a fucking it's a tricky situation because they don't know the rules we don't know the rules we don't know how to parent we've never done that before they don't know how to be a kid they've never done that before it's hard and with no rule book no none at all none at all and I think I was speaking to a friend Charlie Clawson about this that

parenting just this incredible ability for kids to mirror all the things about yourself that you don't like back at you and trigger all of the things about your childhood about your personality they just they kind of can push all those buttons all at once, which is why I think having lots of therapy before you have kids would be a great idea, you know? And I was curious to ask you actually, have you heard of the word matrescence? What that means? No, I was reading though, like, can you give me a really clear version of what it means? Yeah, because as you were speaking through that first part of the interview, it struck me again, as it does every single time, how ridiculous it is that we don't know what we're going through is called matricence. So when we go through adolescence, it's like a 10 year period

of transformation. We're never the same. We don't go back to being a kid. We've gone through this massive hormonal shift. Our personality gets all strange for a while. I wore a lot of like Doc Martens and like trench coats for a while and thought I was like really into punk rock. And, you know, you just become sort of person that's trying on all these personalities. Right. And it's also really rich in terms of like creativity and your hormones and everything. Your emotions are really heightened and your brain's changing. And that's exactly what happens in motherhood when we have babies. So we again go through this becoming like what you said

when you were not the same person and you couldn't go back there after you had kids and that person was gone. Well, yeah, she is gone and she'll become someone else and you'll take elements of that person into that new path. But that's, you know, the choice to become a mum. And there's other things obviously in life. There's menopause. There's other, you know, transformations that can happen.

But from a biological perspective, there's so much research now showing that genuinely our brains are different once we have kids they're just rewired our body gets rewired and this narrative that we're sold that somehow the most important thing about having kids is like bouncing back into that old body and you know if you look like you haven't had a baby and somehow you're being this perfect mother with a perfect looking house while also somehow having a great career and all of that bullshit. But no one tells you that you're going to head to this through this whole matrescence thing that can actually be lifelong, but definitely is really intense in those first 10 years.

So it's really interesting that we haven't been told about it, right? Yeah. And how powerful it would be if we were told when we were teenagers and we were young women that to have kids is then to embark on this new journey because even the choice to have kids then becomes, well, you're just more educated, aren't you, about what you're going to head into, whereas I don't know about you but I just always thought I'd have kids.

I didn't really. Well whereas I don't know about you, but I just didn't, I just always thought I'd have kids. I didn't really. Well, I didn't. I thought I would be the great fun aunt because I had loads of nieces and nephews. So I've got 14 nieces and nephews because of seven. I'm one of seven. So there's like a fuck ton of kids. So I thought I had lived with my sister.

I had, you know, I had been around lots of babies. I'd like gotten up and helped with babies and so I thought I knew I was explaining this to my girlfriend recently I was like I thought I knew I thought I had a pretty good handle on it wouldn't be easy it would be probably quite tricky be quite full-on and also my conversation before I had children was like I don't want to be on the pill anymore and him saying, well, I don't want to have babies with anyone else and me being like, oh, okay. I was 25.

Like I had no fucking idea. None. Just none. You know, like hindsight's 20-20. But I sort of that thing, which I'm sure you've read as well, of like we need to stop asking women if they want to have babies and start asking people if they want to have children that they are responsible for for at least 18 years financially emotionally physically the whole bit you need to be able to

keep these people alive do you think you can do that because that is a very different question to do you want a baby everyone wants a baby babies are fucking cute like that's a very different question to do you want a baby? Everyone wants a baby. Babies are fucking cute. Like that's a stupid question. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, I do. We're hardwired to fucking like babies. Of course we like babies. Do you like teenagers?

How do you feel about 10-year-olds? Yeah. And maybe it's a bit like I do have ADHD, so maybe it's a bit like I'm not great at like future timelines, not a thing I'm good at, never been good at. But I do think that the more that changes, the better. Like I have a friend who was considering having a baby on her own a couple of years ago. And I was like, I don't want to like yuck your yum or anything like that. But I am telling you, it is the fucking hardest thing I've ever done. It has changed me fundamentally as a person.

Solo parenting is a whole other level of hard. It is the fucking hardest thing I've ever done. It has changed me fundamentally as a person. Solo parenting is a whole other level of hard. It is just you. There is no one to bounce off. There is no one to say, hey, I'm done. I need a break. There is just you slogging it out while also trying to manage like house, fucking work, whatever, whatever. And it is hard.

Like it is hard. And I had like financial support. My ex is very supportive like that. But you know, the emotional, the physical, the like making sure there's dinner on the table every night. That was me, just me. And I've got a mate who's been solo parenting for six years. And she was like, this is so hard. And I feel like I'm failing all the time. And so this friend that was thinking about having a baby on her own and I feel like I'm failing all the time. And so this friend that was thinking about having a baby on her own, I was like, that's totally fine, but you currently work 12 and 14-hour days on the reg.

She's like a very high in the film world sort of career, very good at her job. And I was like, you are physically going to struggle with that and then coming home and like feeding at 3am and 5am and not sleeping and your brain's going to be different and you're going to be super foggy and all of these things that you love about your life will no longer exist and that's okay.

If you want to make that choice, I will support you. I will like get on the phone with you at 5am if you need it, like whatever, if that's your choice. But be aware of the choice you are making. Massive. And I want a gift to give her because I think we sugarcoat things or we think that friendship is just being supportive without saying what we honestly think. And I've grown to know that there's this kind of sweet spot between like, just like

giving your opinion and just telling people what to do which is like really annoying I know but also giving them information um in a non-judgmental way that is actually level of friendship and love you know not sugarcoating it not saying oh what a great life choice for you saying cool I will be there for you on the other side of whatever you choose but this is what I actually know. And I think I've watched good friends of mine. I had a baby when not a lot of my friends had any, so I had no idea. And now I've had some good friends just very recently have babies and I didn't sugarcoat anything for them. I told them straight up. And so it's meant that I've watched them go into it with so much more information. Even giving over our birth to the medical system, I just did that.

I didn't know that I could advocate for myself. It landed me in some pretty significant, you know, birth trauma and birth injuries. And I just didn't know that I had the option and the power to say, I don't want this person in the room or this midwife isn't any good for me or all of those things. And so watching now the women in my life who are empowered who have that knowledge they can make that choice but they're not shocked and they're not feeling so alone in it or like what's wrong with me that I'm finding so hard so yeah I'm so supportive of that I wanted to ask you about ADHD. When did you figure that out? A couple of years ago. Yeah,

about the same time. So no, so the funny thing is I have always joked that I probably had ADHD. I have a brother who'd been diagnosed as a kid. My dad is very symptomatic, but has never been diagnosed. And so I had constantly joked. I was like like my ADHD and then a couple of years ago I started doing some research into like what are actually symptoms of ADHD and I was like oh I thought those were personality traits that just I had just me I just thought they were fun little quirks or like things that I wasn't good at or things that I was broken at or like things that I needed to try harder at what can you give us examples oh yeah I got loads you ready here we go let's get stuck in test off we go um I'm really good at focusing I like hyper focus if I'm

interested in something if I am not interested in something like tax it is like trying to coral a thousand horses into a 10 pen yard like it I just it's so fucking frustrating shit like a mate of mine calls it the ADHD tax late for late fees fucking everything because I haven't forgotten or like I have 52 alarms like so for this so we had I had it booked into my calendar I had a 10 minute alarm I had a fucking two-day alarm and then I sent myself a thing so that I would get an email last night to like make sure that I remember you know like appointments I have three and four reminders two reminders three reminders I have now bought a, which is very helpful because I'm not very good at time. I think it's been 10 minutes.

It's actually been an hour and a half. That's very unhelpful when you need to charge people. Photos. But time, stuff. You know, the flip side of that is I am quite creative. I have billions of ideas all the time and I thought that was pretty normal. Turns out there's lots of people that don't have ideas all the time and I thought that was pretty normal. Turns out there's lots of people that don't have ideas all the time

and can't sleep because their ideas are running around. Turns out it's not that like not everybody has voices in their head that talk in like Derry Girl accents for a couple of months because they watch Derry Girl. Like all of the voices in my head turned into like fucking Northern Irish people on the border in the fucking 80s for a bit. Great.

Very helpful. I also have this super fun thing that, again, I thought was just a funny personality quirk. Turns out ADHD. Where I will have my thoughts become like lyrics to a song. So I'll hear the melody in my head and then my thoughts will just go along as if they're the lyrics, which is very annoying when you're trying to go to sleep, you know, just shit like that. Like I'm very good at telling stories.

I tend to interrupt a lot. So this is like, you know, like when we just pause for a minute before, I am immediately like fuck am I talking too much am I not talking enough am I like taking enough breaths am I um you know and but then the flip side of that is like I've run an event and had 12 people on stage and managed that beautifully because I am good at that yeah and you're good at this too and I noticed that when you came back on I was like she's in her head about it or something you're thinking it's no good and it's really good because you're a really good storyteller tell teller teller teller teller and you're really

genuinely being yourself which is just the bloody best thing who wants to listen to an interview with someone who's just regurgitating the things that they've said a thousand times and but but it does I get because I haven't been diagnosed with ADHD but I interviewed Sally Hepworth who has ADHD and just cried in the middle of her interview because all the things that I correct thought were just like real personality flaws or feels me about and I resonate with basically everything you said. I mean, I'm a songwriter because songs follow me around just constantly in my head, have done forever. I thought other people got really drunk and when they got really drunk, they hid in the toilet cubicle and wrote songs into their phone.

I thought other people did that. Totally normal. Everybody does that. Fine. Totally fine. I'm Claire's Claire. Yeah. Everybody does that.

I know. I've got over 18 18 000 unread emails in my inbox and I don't know how to handle emails I don't know what to do with that nobody tells me I don't know how long time is I potentially am late for everything and I have a thousand like alarms but I've done all that stuff and even like exercise and things to manage my own head I've just always I've sort of fallen into all of these patterns to help me do all the things I can do. And it's only in recent years and listening to Sally Hepworth

talk about all the things she does to manage her ADHD that I was like, oh, shit, that's everything I do all the time. And I just thought I was broken and that people would see that. And so I just work extra bloody hard to try not to. And then the thing that gets me is I feel like I'm just working so hard all of the time to just be a regular human and like turn up with a salad or like just remember my friend's birthdays or their like kids parties. And people don't think that I care, which is the thing I think scares me the most, that people think because I haven't turned up or I've turned up late

or I haven't bought the right thing or I can't remember fucking Japanese day-to-day from my kids' school that I don't care about them and I don't care about my friendships, which is like furthest from the truth. Yeah. I really care. But it's just all that is to say, was it hard to get a diagnosis? Was that? So I've only been diagnosed by a psychologist.

I have, yeah, because this is the thing, right, is the actual diagnosis process is so fucking annoying for people with ADHD. So the first thing I did, they sent me like eight forms and I emailed back and went, I won't be filling all these out. There's far too many. Good job. far too many. Good job. Because you're going to be sick.

Like that's ridiculous. Like eight forms? Are you kidding me? That's going to take me months. And then, of course, I didn't do them until like I got a follow-up phone call being like, Tess, you have to do the forms because your appointment's next week. I was like, oh, shit. Right, all right and then I like sat down just like tried to corral my fucking wild horse brain and then

tried to do the bloody things and then I just like finally get into the appointment she's like well you know you do have some pretty strong indicators and I was like i i mean i just got here she's like you didn't want to fill the forms out it took you really long to fill them out and you fucking gave them all late tests like that like we're box ticking already i was like oh okay and then she asked me a bunch of questions that i thought were really funny she's like how's your dental health and i was like oh i mean my teeth are fucked but I don't think it's because of ADHD. But I lose track of time when I'm cleaning my teeth, so I either clean them for far too long or not enough.

And, like, sometimes I'll do stuff to, like, make myself stay in the bathroom. Like I'll either set a timer or I'll, like, open up a podcast or open up a book or open up Instagram or open up TikTok or something so I can just, like, make myself stay there. But then I'll be like, oh, that's been on one tooth for a while. Shit, I've got to move it around, you know. Fucking hell, man. I do know.

I do know. I do know. Yeah. And then she was like, how are you with late fees? And I was like, and then she was like, what are you about? Like, are you late for things? And I was like, no, because I'm so anxious about being late that I just am never late because my mother was always late to things that used to drive me crazy and I hated that

so like I'm always way too early so that I won't be late yeah you know if I have an appointment at 2 p.m I can't do anything for the whole morning because I might be late for the appointment at 2 p.m so I have to like try and book things at like the first half of the day otherwise I just spend the whole day like oh no I've got an appointment at 2pm like there's not enough time to put a load of washing on because I've got an appointment at 2pm yeah there's not enough time to do editing because I've got an appointment at 2pm it's like yeah dude you can like edit from 9 till 12 you know and then talking yourself out of that being like no you could just do an hour just set a timer for an hour and then it'll still only be 10 and then you still have like hours to your appointment you know yeah I know I always get surprised at how much time is between now 9 a.m

and lunchtime I always just get surprised on the daily also it's funny you say this because even me getting to this interview we rescheduled so much because I'm the worst with time and I also scheduled things like because I just did it for my first tour over the weekend and like all this like really cool stuff but it's just the scheduling thing I just it's a surprise to me when my alarm goes off and I'm like that's right the interview for Tess that I spent yesterday the day for like preparing for but no it's a surprise. Surprise. Yeah.

Surprise. And also, yeah, it's the whole turning up for appointments thing. I just, yeah, I totally hear you. And I guess it's that whole other piece yet again of being a woman as well with ADHD, which means like no surprise your brother was diagnosed, but you weren't diagnosed. It's just like a whole melting pot of stuff. But has that been another piece of this identity thing for you that's changed oh yeah and like I totally overshare about it to like fucking anyone on the street and be like oh yeah but you know like I've got ADHD I was like I was at a fucking workshop

recently and I was like so cringed at myself afterwards just like you don't actually have to tell everybody that in the first 10 minutes. You don't have to list off all your fucking things. Other people don't do that. Yeah. It's fine. Do it if you want to, but you actually don't have to. You just rock up into a room and be like, here's me.

Here's all of my things. Gay, ADHD, fucking focuses shit, you know, like anyway, whatever. But also I think maybe yes and good, aren't we? Like everyone else is so bloody boring. You get in there and you're like, this isn't why I am with Japan. Why not? I'm just no longer interested in not being that person. And I just feel like that's part of, for me,

and I haven't had a diagnosis but even the understanding myself better with all of the traits that I can see in myself and that has allowed me to be like well she's out of the box now and what can I do with that box you know like out of that box now that's why like I just threw myself into making this album and hyper focused on it to the point of like my kids like my husband would like find me on the stairs listening to a particular part of a song and he'd be like have the kids eaten I'm like I don't know I think so you know just that but also the magic that really deep focus and what that allows you to do and I wanted to ask you now about your creative work

because I think that's like the bloody great stuff about having a brain that works like yours. What do you love about photography and film? So like this is a perfect example of ADHD brain. So a couple of years ago I was like, oh, really? I think I want to make a film. And then the kid's dad, so he'd been working in WA and I'd had them for a while and I was like, hey, I actually need you to come back over the border. I know you might not be able to go back to work but I can't just keep

homeschooling and parenting and doing that on my own. So this was the first year of the pandemic. And so he was like, all right, I'll come back. So he did. And then he got stuck where we were. He couldn't go to Queensland, couldn't go to WA. He ended up getting some mining work in New South Wales, but he was like quite restricted to what he could do.

So he was sort of around more than he'd been in a while. I was like, oh, I think I'm going to make a movie. Yes. I reckon I could do that. It can't be that hard. So I made a short film. No experience, no idea, like none none you know just nothing and I was like all right I'll just like I'll just google it and then I wrote a I went on a date with a girl on tinder and then was like

oh you act that's cool do you want to make a movie with me and I think she thought I was joking I wasn't and so I went home and madly wrote a little script that night. Look, it wasn't a good, wasn't a good film, but it was a film. And I had a beginning, a middle and an end. And I made it with no experience. I'm quite proud of that. And I taught myself how to edit, which I didn't know, and how to color grade and how to tie it all together.

I'd had a podcast before. And I think there's a little bit of similarity in audio editing and film editing, like not heaps, but enough to be like, oh yeah, I could probably figure that out. And so yeah, I've made this little short film. So I think, just going back to answer your question, the thing I love about the way my brain does creative stuff is if I can focus on one of the ideas and pull it off, it usually works out well. But the part of that sentence that is a little tricky is the if. So I've just been having some mentoring with a couple of like quite big deals in the photography

world and that I like invested in because I was sort of like I know what I'm good at I'm great at ideas I'm not good always at focus or knowing which one to like just choose one is like not good advice for me it's like you know yeah I don't know I know all of these ideas yes yes I do know yes yes yeah and it's very common with people with ADHD to be like like I've got a mate who's an common with people with ADHD to be like, like I've got a mate who's an entrepreneur and she once said to me, I don't know if she has ADHD but she certainly acts like someone who has ADHD on the regular, and she was like, I write my ideas down and if it's an idea I want to come back to,

it'll keep coming up. So I just keep writing them down and if it's like five days in a row I have the same thing and then in six months I'm still having it, then I'm like, okay, I'll put some them down and if it if it's like five days in a row I have the same thing and then in six months I'm still having it then I'm like okay I'll put some time and money into it she's like a serial entrepreneur I love that do you know what the other thing I do is I tend to align it deeply with my own purpose so like I'll do all the ideas that chase me around all the songs I do this with songs and then I'll be like is that the closest to the ideas that chase me around, all the songs. I do this with songs. And then I'll be like, is that the closest to the thing that I think is heart-centred, heart-led?

And there's also just a weird buzzy feeling about it that like, yeah, that's it. It's like deeply connected. That's how I do it anyway. I don't know. Yeah. No, that's super helpful. Well, so the mentoring session that I had this one particular person, I was like, okay,

these are the lists. This is what I've got. And I was like, I think I could try this or I could try this or I could try this. And I was like, but these are my limitations. I have children. I am primarily responsible for those children. They go to school six hours a day. That is my time period that I have. And I was like, I think I'm going to build a studio in my garage. And he was like, yes. And then I was like, and I've kind of got was like, I think I'm going to build a studio in my garage. And he was like, yes. And then I was like, and I've kind of got this thing. I think I want to focus on like single parents. Like I think I want to do this single parents thing.

And he's like, well, you've talked about that a bit. So yes, go there. And so since that, I have started like painting backdrops and stuff to like create this studio space in my shed. But I want to do an exhibition where I photograph single parents and also video them and have a little chat about what they love about single parenting or what's tricky about single parenting and also I think I have this common thread of food so I don't know if it'll be also asking them is there a go-to meal that they do when everything goes pear-shaped because I feel like that's a pretty common

parenting thing and then I will turn that into an exhibition and then I will probably turn that into a book I love that yeah I love that it's exactly what I just said isn't it it's that yeah the thing you know the most about is usually the thing closest to you that then I've learned this lesson like a thousand times over and I think the universe tends to like throw little stones at you and when you don't listen it throws bigger rocks and eventually it'll be a boulder and then you'll be like knocked out I buy it if you don't listen but it is it's like that you think that you should do but the thing that's the most vulnerable closest to you that you know the most about always, I think then the most personal, I think Glennon Doyle talks about this, who I love too, she's a writer, that it is the

thing, the most personal, the closest, the thing that you think is the even nichest or smallest thing turns out to be the thing that's the most powerful and universal. And that story of what it really is to be a single parent i mean i'm i'm assuming there will be so many people in that boat who don't feel seen in their story that's super unique yeah and also that what you said about meals every fucking day with a dinner it happens every bloody day tess and nobody tells you that that's the other question i ask you do you want to have a baby it's like no do you want to be responsible for cooking meals for children for the next 15 at

least years every night you got to feed them every night did you forget you have children you still have them you got to feed them every night and what the bloody hell to cook i don't know oh it's the worst and i don't know if you identify with this but I love food there's nothing like having kids and particularly kids who are fussy eaters with allergies to kill any joy in it you know I love food I have I don't know if my kids are allergic to anything I don't think there's nothing there's no big health issues that I'm like oh yeah that's probably an allergy and so my kids have quite diverse palates because I kind of refused to do like I was just like I'm not I'm only cooking one meal eat it don't eat it I don't care that's this is the meal

I just can't like I cannot cook you all different things because you're all having a moment about liking different I'm just not doing it so like I had a three-year-old eating lamb tagine um couscous and fucking, you know, six-hour slow-cooked lamb shoulder because that's what I was into at the time. Yeah, I probably didn't do a great job of that. I mean, they're good. They eat a lot of different stuff but, you know,

sometimes it rebounds on me that they're like, I'll make something and I'll be like, wasn't your best effort. I'm like, I didn't actually mean to create three little food critics but I kind of feel like I may have done that accidentally no that's great I feel like that's kind of great parenting advice actually that sometimes you just force them to not force them but you just like do the thing and they take it or leave it I think that's quite good advice really you know like I wasn't like you can't leave the table till you eat and I never did that but I was just like I'm actually not making anything else so if you don't want to eat this that's cool go figure it out for

yourself yeah make your own dinner and I still do that now so great because I also think there's I have both parents who are like super passionate about their jobs my dad probably had ADHD in hindsight possibly my mom too now when I think about it. But they like messy house, terrible at domestic stuff, really highly creative and like very successful in their careers. But life stuff and admin, terrible. I think that it's that room and space where they've just got to do it for themselves and figure it out a bit rather than having everything kind of spoon fed and perfect is great. I think it raises kids who are more independent.

Well, I got really sick on the Easter holidays and my girlfriend isn't like, she likes food but she's not a foodie and she's definitely not a cook. And so she fully picked up all of the slack. She like ran the whole household. One of my kids was sick as well and my other two were fine. And then my oldest kid was like, I'll cook dinner wow I volunteered to cook dinner for the three of them and then cooked it and is 12 yeah you know and like maybe they won't be doing that when they're 15 or whatever but like at the moment they were like oh I can do that that's a job I can do I'll just step

right up and do that which is pretty fucking cool you know that. That's a job I can do. I'll just step right up and do that, which is pretty fucking cool. It's really cool. It's really cool. I remember growing up we did that because my parents were so hopeless. Their bedroom was a disaster. So they went away and we just painted it for them and reorganised it because my sister and I were, this is ridiculous. They're two grown humans.

They can't keep living like this. Screams ADHD, by the way. the way yeah it really does doesn't it in so many levels but like really and as kids we like learned taught ourselves how to paint and move the bedroom and stuff and yeah but i do i think that's great and it's also teaching kids that they can rely on themselves you know which i think is really important and i think i used to be a primary school teacher and kids do rise to the expectations that you set for them. It's not always perfect, don't get me wrong, but I do think that for sure.

Something I noticed in your work, and people should go to your Instagram account because it's just so beautiful. The photography there is just breathtaking. Thank you. I noticed that so many of the photos are of the natural world, the natural environment. What is your belief or connection to place?

Oh, my God, that's such an interesting question. It's so funny because I'm trying to do this studio thing at the moment, which will be the opposite of that. I don't know. So, you know, I grew up in Varel and my dad is like the countryest bloke like you know we had cattle he's a stock and station agent we sort of always had like you know farm animals and jobs to do and that sort of thing but we were raised with this by both of my parents actually my mum has a very interesting way of being very like isn't today glorious look at that isn't that

bloody amazing like to the point where you used to annoy me as a teenager like I remember she called me once at boarding school and was like oh I have to tell you something we're sitting outside and we saw a satellite and then we saw a satellite go the other way and I was like fuck are you calling me to tell me about satellites mom mum? Like, come on, you know, at 16. Now I'm like, that's quite cool actually. So she was that. And then dad was, he knew a lot of names for plants. He knew a lot of names for birds.

And he was like very aware of the land. And he had this real thing of like, do not buy a property if you're not going to look after it or improve it. Like, just don't. Do not run a property if you're not going to look after it or improve it like just don't do not run a property into the ground don't overstock he had a real big thing about that like having too many cattle or sheep or whatever but he was always like like improve look after connect so I think growing up with that I have always wanted to like, you know, also just like we live in one of the most spectacular places in the world.

Like I've lived in Canada, I've lived in Indonesia, I've travelled a fair bit, all before I had children, and I just am still fucking gobsmacked by like where we get to live. It's pretty fucking crazy really. Like there's a lot of parts of Australia that you can walk into and just be like this is a dream yeah genuinely genuinely yeah yeah and looking at the photos that you've taken you can see that the light the way the light plays that sense of like reflection there's a photo of a waterway near where you live what is that can you explain that so before we moved to newcastle

is i think this is a photo you're talking about uh we lived on six acres just outside of byron with a creek in our front yard that we could swim in that was like you know 20 meters from the front door which was very special and incredibly helpful during the lockdowns and you know having three kids it was like just absolutely godsend. And like upriver from that creek is like this insane, beautiful waterfall. And then we moved and the floods happened in Lismore shortly after that. So that whole area was pretty affected by that and we had moved like weeks,

just weeks before. But, yeah, it's like yeah that like there was platypuses in that creek like it's fucking unbelievable yeah you know truly and I think that's part of this idea of being an artist and creative right that you're noticing like deeply noticing your surroundings and the more I think about art the more I think that you can't not be connected when you're working in that way like the best art to me an artist objective but the best art to me the one that's deeply connected to a sense of the earth and our place on it and then reflecting that back to us and I know for me in songwriting and I'd be interested to know about you in your photography that really the best ideas also come for me when I am really deeply feeling connected

in my sense of place to trees to the bodies of water around me yeah does that resonate with you yeah totally and I've been doing this thing of swimming on a Wednesday morning early now that I have someone who lives here all the time which is another amazing benefit of having the best girlfriend in the world um so I've been getting up at six and going and doing laps in a pool there's like beach pools here in Newcastle oh my god they're the best they're just the best there's like a couple that one's being renovated at the moment but they're just the best um so we were like swimming all through summer we've only just stopped and I want to start again because we just stopped because of life stuff but like swimming at six and then doing the rest of your day that feeling of just like

i don't know you know that moment when you first dive underwater it's just like just for a moment it's very quiet and it's very like just you're just there like that very present thing and then I think the thing that I'm trying to like turn into with the studio thing is this sense of people because I deeply love people and I think women in particular we've really hard on ourselves in front of a camera like you know even this I'm looking at this I'm like I look fake my background looks fake I look fake like the light looks fake. I look fake. Like the light looks fake. And I know I could move and make it better, but I don't want to.

But that like that connection and that like that moment that happens sometimes with portraiture. And I don't always put a lot of the portraiture work that I do on my Instagram because sometimes, you know, I like to ask people's permission before I share any of that. You know, I know that they're not always signing up for I'm paying you to take my photo and now you can put it and use my face to advertise so I you know like I try and keep that quite clean but that moment that someone I take a photo and someone feels seen that to me is just like the absolute pinnacle of a shot. If I take a photo of someone and they're like, oh, that was so easy and I felt that really felt good and I like really love this photo,

job done, that's me just like height of like joy. It's really special. It does. Do you know what I love about that too that in that moment you're giving that gift of that person the ability to see themselves in all their perfect imperfection and I think that that is exactly what we've been talking about this whole time right it's like also turning that lens around to yourself and seeing yourself like that and I think what a gift that you can give to other people but also in this conversation what a gift that you can give to other

people, but also in this conversation, what a gift you're giving to other people who are listening to just be like, buddy, set yourself free. I'm fine with who that person is, you know, and it's better on the other side. Oh, it's so fucking worth it. Like if that's anything out of this conversation, it's so worth it. Like it will be hard, but it is so worth it. And what advice, and this is so worth it and what advice and this is always finished what advice will you give other single parents out there who are doing it or what do you have something you want to say to them it's so funny no i do i sort of have been writing this list which i'm not going to read to you because it's like 15 fucking things on it but

one of the things that i found so helpful when when days are really hard is like find a rhythm whatever it is, doesn't matter what the rhythm is and stick to it and stick to it as long as you can until it calms down again. And so for me, that's like, we still have a bedtime of 7.30 in my house because it just makes my job easier.

And I'm jokingly call myself a lazy parent, but it's like, it will make your life easier to have a rhythm. I swear to God, it sounds ridiculous, it's stupid, whatever, but it just it's almost like that constancy of rhythm gives the kids a sense of constancy even if everything else is pear-shaped. So like moving to Newcastle, I got really stuck in a rhythm. We ate breakfast at the same time.

We ate dinner at the same time. We had the same pattern before we went to bed. We read the same book of a night or whatever, whatever that was, like whatever that rhythm is for you, but just hold to it. And also I think the other thing is like just try and manage your own shit. The more you manage yourself, the less parenting you have to do or the easier it is to

do the parenting piece if that makes sense yeah it makes so much sense i also love the the fact that you said rhythm not routine because i hate the word routine and it freaks me out but i can do it routine yeah me too but that rhythm because it's a constant then it's less thought processes that have to go into it and then give yeah and you can feel safe thank you my pleasure what do you i keep saying the word gift today i don't know what's happened with that but i keep saying it like the word journey noise both yeah like it's really annoying but i'm just gonna say it again thank you so much for reaching out this has just been such an amazing conversation. Thank you for your story.

Thank you for the work that you're putting out in the world and the courage that it's taken to do that over the last few years. I just think, great, the more people we can get to give themselves permission, right, go and seek out the life that they really want, even if they don't know what that looks like yet. Yeah, and even that it it can be not knowing it can be not knowing you don't have to know all the answers you don't have to just take you know what the first step is we all know what the first step is whatever it is for us we all know what that first little piece is just fucking do that see what happens i love that maybe your

life will be different um people can find me i have a website it's just test does.com because when i started that website i was doing a lot of things and then i have an instagram which is test does and then an underscore at the end but yeah either of those awesome i do have an email newsletter that i occasionally do very occasional you'll get a blurb of thoughts like this conversation where i just overshare um lovingly i lovingly overshare i think that's the best oh my god okay so in typical adhd fashion for some reason my phone battery is at like nine percent which means that our conversation is just going to cut off in a minute but thank you so much for today and um definitely go and check out Tess's work thank you you're welcome bye you've been

listening to a podcast with me Claire Tonti and this week with Tess Lehman photographer writer and dreamer for more from Tess you can head to tessdoes.com. You can also follow her over on Instagram to see her incredibly beautiful photography. It has this kind of dreamy vintage quality to it that I just loved. I also love seeing her boiler suits too. So if you want to see some pictures of Tess in her boiler suits, head on over there as well. I'm so excited to come to Newcastle. I'm actually going to meet

Tess while I'm there. We're going to catch up maybe for a beer or a walk or something. And I'm just really looking forward to connecting with her and seeing her hometown. For more from me, you can head to claretonty.com. And I also tell stories over on Instagram at claretonty. For all my live events and shows where I'll be, head on over to clairetonti.com forward slash events where you'll see everything there. You can listen to my album. It's available on Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube.

And that's it really. If you want to write in to me with an opinion about the show, a guest you think I should talk to, just your story if you feel like sharing, you can head on over to hello at claire20.com. I'd love to hear from you. And if you wouldn't mind rating, reviewing, and subscribing, all of those things, that really helps me get this show out. Actually, the biggest thing you could do is share it with a friend. If you felt like this episode resonated for you, please share it with someone that you think might also love it just as much. I would really, really appreciate it. Okay. That's it for me this week. Big love to you. Oh, thank you to Roar Collings for editing this week's episode and to Maisie for running

our socials. All right. That's really it from me. See ya.