In 2010 I set myself a 365 day task to produce a portrait of my world every day and to run each day of the year. I did it.
In 2014 I completed four months of another resolution.
In 2022, we have become nomads and I have resurrected the blog. There are still 2 resolutions: Live life fully in many different countries and eventually find a forever home.
This is a once-weekly blog of something interesting in my life.
With Poison IVY all but gone, she ran 4.5 km in the beautiful morning meadow, a crisp blue day, her footsteps once more familiar on the worn path, with Queen Anne's Lace flowers and little Eastern tailed blue butterflies coming out to greet her. Catbirds made their strange rasping calls at Refrigerator Corner, and purple vetch pleased her eye on Heartbreak Hill.
The black dog lay in the shade each circuit, waiting for her to appear parallel on the other side of the meadow, the dog's signal to bound across exuding dog happiness at seeing her again. "Molly!" she exhaled encouragingly each time this happened. Swathes of celandine have taken over the vegetable rows, and goldenrod everywhere is coming into blossom, visited by an assortment of insects, including her bees.
Friends for lunch, and then peaceful kayaking with the girls and their boyfriends in the afternoon and into early evening, out to Kettle Island and back. It is the first time on a kayak for one of the boyfriends and he does a grand job, after turning in circles for a while at the beginning.
Near the pier, on clear glossy water, she encounters a cormorant which comes up out of the water close to her kayak. It is startled at her proximity and promptly loses its fish, but dives straight down again and comes up triumphantly, this time swallowing with success. She is so close that she can see the bright orange of the soft skin around its throat, and its beautiful turquoise eye.
She observes that it bathes in the same way as the little chickadees do in her birdbath, flapping its wings and fawning its neck back to get clean, only its birdbath is the entire deep sea. She anchors her kayak on a buoy and watches as it clambers out on to a seaweed-covered rock, proceeds to preen its belly, then turns and flaps its wings a few times before hanging them out to dry in the late sun, frilling out its tail every now and then. It is soaking up the last lovely warmth of the day. It takes a fair amount of energy to manage this whole drying business, clambering out of the easy element, then flapping out all the water, then standing there for long periods of time, giving the occasional shake to the outstretched wings.
Beautiful bird. She memorises its shape, its stance, and then draws it late at night while she is waiting for the boys to come home from Nick's cast party.
Tim took everyone to a real American diner for lunch. I was not so keen, but the waitress was a lovely middle-aged woman with a gravelly voice, and the ambience is unsurpassed in this place.
The cheerful waitress addressed us as "Tourists", which brought home how un-American we really are!
We laughed and ate delicious food, told stories and jokes and sat in our familiar family togetherness.
Later we meandered around Rockport, a beautiful little place where Tim and I are going to live when the boys have gone to college and the housing market picks up again.
I took my dad (and my brother) there a few years ago and he loved it, cheerfully trying each new taste my brother put in front of him (he had never had sushi before!).
I remember when I took him on a river cruise and each passenger was given a postcard of the boat. He was overjoyed, and decided that he would send his postcard to his sister Margaret to tell her all about his trip. I said that I thought that would be a very good idea, because what was the point of telling him that his sister had been dead a good few years already, and that in fact there was no one left in his immediate family, no parents, no siblings, no wife. I knew he would forget all about the card in about 10 minutes, anyway.
And then in the evening we went to watch Nick's play, The Music Man, which was lovely, not as good as last year, but then I am biased because my two boys were the main characters in the last play, My Fair Lady. All the children are so good by the end of the 4 week rehearsal period, they are truly impressive. The director is excellent! She's been directing these plays since the 1970's, apparently.
And no, I did not get to run today either.
And yes, Lily is so much better. Eating four times a day!
The beautifully designed Peabody-Essex Museum in Salem. We went to Salem specifically to see the memorial to the 18 people accused of witchcraft in 1692 and hanged for it. One man was "pressed to death" which brings home how utterly barbaric the whole incident was.
Salem is a peculiar place, full of fake pseudo objects and people. I got into trouble for turning things which are supposed to be turned, like big kaleidoscope-type things, as I had not see the sign saying "DO NOT TOUCH". We recalled when Jess had done a similar thing in a fancy shop in Boston, picking up a little watery dome thing and shaking it, only to find she had just killed all the sea-monkey shrimp and their perfectly balanced world! She had mistaken it for a snow-globe.
I didn't get to run today, maybe tomorrow, so many things to do, food to make, and a lovely Beatles concert to end the day, with great food made by my friend, and smiley faces, only Nick missing, performing in his play.
This portrait "Sunglasses", serves as my self-portrait tonight, although it was taken by Markie, of me and my daughters and their boyfriends, whom I love already. You just have to love the people your children have chosen. And usually it is easy because they select well.
And Lily continues to wolf down food and is almost her old self.
And Poison Ivy has lifted her hold on me and is slowly slinking away!
After not eating or drinking anything all day yesterday, and behaving in a way which seemed to signify that she had given up on life and was imminently due to leave us, and us all saying our tearful goodbyes to her last night, we woke up to find Lily the old cat still alive.
It was very early and she wanted to go outside so I let her out and sat with her each time she settled somewhere, stroking her and talking to her (even though she is stone-deaf) and every now and then weeping for her little life which has been lived in that pure way animals have.
She seemed to be looking around for water in the pot-plant holders and so I poured some water for her and, very carefully, she drank! Then I tried her on some of her food and she ate a tiny bit too! Eventually everyone else woke up and began coming out in dribs and drabs, amazed at the miraculous little cat.
And so we have been monitoring her all through the day, giving her treats like tuna and raw chicken, and water laced with the water that canned tuna is stored in. And tonight she seems better, still very weak and odd-looking, but almost herself. I know she still may be on her way out, but she had a good day today, with everyone loving her and stroking her and taking care not to stand on her where she lay, always right in the way! Such a dear little cat.
The new couch we were given is very popular. Here are two instances of it being put to good use.
Tomorrow I will run again, my poison ivy is quite a lot better, and I hope it will not chafe when I run. I can't wait!
Delicate fairy creatures, these thistle seeds. Wafting away, they fly until they fetch up against something, and then begins the long long wait, through autumn, the cold snows of winter, until spring, when a few of them will have discovered the perfect place for a new thistle plant, and, having all the purple and green and white carefully stored inside the seed's memory, will proceed once again with the cell-dividing and metamorphosis into a tall strong plant which attracts insects, and makes beauty with light.
Watching these children of mine, I see the DNA memory they have stored inside them, us three women with the feet and ankles of my mother, their Granny Joan, and handed down to her from the Hewitson side - my great aunt Phyllis with the same ankles. And my female cousins, they both laugh like their mother, Nora, my mother's sister, who received the genes for that particular laugh, in her turn, from my grandmother Gracie, my little granny who gave so many of us her artistic genes, the ability to look at something and draw it perfectly, the capacity for beauty which stopped Nick in his tracks one spring day at Dalrymple School, where three trees stood in all their white spring blossom. (Nick has always been hyper-aware of beauty, e.g. when he was nearly three he came into the corner shop with me where, unfortunately, all the porn magazines were displayed behind the glass at his eye level. He fell utterly in love with one large-breasted cover-girl, looked up at me with wonder in his eyes as he asked if he could have that particular "book" for his birthday.)
Matthew rubs his feet together when sitting just like my dad used to, and both boys sleep positioned like Tim in bed. And where did Matthew's huge round eyes come from? Nick's long bony fingers, the brown eyes of Jess, the only child without blue eyes? (When the girls were little, I once told Emma that she had eyes like the sky, sunny-sky-blue eyes, and Jess eagerly asked me, "Well, what are my eyes like Mom?" To which I replied, "Your eyes are like mountain-pools, the water that's come down from the top of the mountain." Years later I discovered that she thought I meant her eyes were like mud-pools!)
I have Swedish, Scottish, British and South African blood. We are all made up of such mixtures, the darknesses, the lights, the talents, the vices of our ancestors running through our veins. And it is fascinating to see little bits of things, little shards here and there, in subsequent generations. Some ancestors are lost now that we are the oldest generation of the family, like Auntie Birdie, whose name was Berenice, and who was beloved of my grandmother, but I have no idea where she fits in in the family tree. And old Auntie Bill, called Wilhelmina, who helped raise my orphaned grandfather, I think. They were seen infrequently and so are largely forgotten by my childhood self.
Here are my two girls reading something intently together on the couch, Jess not sitting in the regular way, which is her usual manner, reading over the shoulder of her older sister Emma, their hair almost blending together, their heads so close.
Went for a lovely walk on the beach in the evening, ran races - competition is rife amongst siblings, their significant others, and even the old matriarch of the family!
The water, which has been 9 to 10 degrees above normal is suddenly freezing like the Atlantic in Cape Town.
So much food to make for all these people again, I had almost forgotten how to do that. In South Africa we always had about 8 for dinner each day, but for a long time we have just had 4.
Oh how I miss these daughters.
I have no desire for them to live with us, they are, after all, independent and have been for years, but I just want them to live in vaguely the same area as we do!
Amongst my four children I am the little one now, it is a common reversal of roles, the once omnipotent mother become small and fairly insignificant in everyday terms. Become someone to laugh at gently because she loses all the races, doesn't understand certain allusions. But someone who can still cook for an army, someone who can still dispense advice, set down rules, laugh with you, listen to your stories, and tell you hers.
And tomorrow we'll all run and swim and talk and argue and surprise one another and sing in the car and play games in the evening to much hilarity, together again. Another day.
Kirsty, whom we have known since she was about 6 years old, is having her enormous second baby the day after my birthday. The females of the house all went to her baby shower today, a lovely Devonshire Tea with beautiful cups and saucers and delicious food which kept on coming! Just when you thought you couldn't fit another bite, more beautiful sweet things appeared which you just couldn't resist. I feel as though I don't want to eat again for a long time!
The bunch of women had such fun together, and so much laughter and hilarity emanated from our room that an old couple walking by looked in and asked us if we had a stand-up comedian in the room! The old man added, as they were walking on, "Well, I thought that you had a male stripper in here!"
Buying the presents is always such fun, the babygros/onesies are impossibly small, the colours amazingly bright, the toys so gorgeous.
A whole new little person will arrive in a month's time, with tiny little perfect toes and fingers, with little frog-limbs and a whole new personality of its own.
This morning we swam in the very cold sea, lovely gentle waves, and your body does eventually become accustomed to the temperature. Bright sun and big fluffy clouds, and a warm wind which feels like a berg wind but of course isn't.
I don't think I will get much drawing done in these two weeks, although I have planned to, so perhaps there will be more photographs than drawings for a while.
The poison ivy saga continues: Tim got me the stuff recommended by an old friend, which does indeed work, but I think it basically achieves this effect by sand-papering off your skin along with any remnants of urushiol, the poison ivy ingredient to which many people are allergic. So now I have a raw and weeping area where all the bumps used to be, which I hope will heal very soon! Good grief, I could qualify for the life of a Spartan at this rate!
This afternoon, after having to rip the fabric of my skirt from where it was stuck to my wounded leg, then finding the afflicted region glued to the seat of the car, Jess bought me some gel healing breast pads, which adhere to sore nipples and apparently work very well on poor destroyed skin of the inner thigh too!
The poison ivy is not much better today, and in a really bad place which chafes, so she walks around the meadow slowly with the black dog, noticing things, seeing flowers she usually runs right over, still feeling vaguely miserable, knowing how many days she has to go before all the inflammation and discomfort is gone, the majority of the time her daughters are here, so inconvenient for her body to let her down like this!
Later she thinks that you just have to get over yourself with this, although no one really understands poison ivy unless they have had it, which not another soul in her family has!
So she and the eldest child and the eldest child's boyfriend go to the airport to fetch Jess, who was delayed in Amsterdam, but who is supposedly on the same plane she would have been on the day before. They wait and wait, crying at the old man in the wheelchair whose daughter greets him with love, weeping when the 10 and 12 year old girls race up to their dad, the youngest throwing herself on him, leaping up with abandon, hanging on, her long body too big really, but not caring. The older one more circumspect, reserved, butting her head under his arm, so sweet. And the couple kissing for minutes at a time, coming up for air and then kissing deeply again, all they want to do it get to the nearest bed and know one another all over again. The little grand-daughter put on her feet to run to her grandparents but who decides they actually look a bit scary and instead locks on to her dad's legs and won't budge. And the woman next to us, who runs up to a girl and takes her into her arms, the girl smiling, then stepping back as they realise that they don't actually know one another at all, the younger one resembles her niece but is not quite right, the 'niece' a bit non-plussed, thinking, "This is a very friendly country!" and a bit sad to walk away from this sweet family. And all the emotions float on the air and are imbibed by the unsuspecting empathic women like Em and her mother, so that their hearts are full and overflow out of their eyes in salt-water.
And eventually each passenger has been hugged or kissed or slapped on the back, and taken off to cars and buses and trains, but her little trio remains, glued to the barrier, wondering where their beloved person is. And finally they are the only ones left, and still no sign, and their hearts sink, and they start trying to find out what has happened. And their imaginations run to places where they have to shut the door quickly because it is too bad to think of.
And at last, one hour and 40 minutes after they arrived, when only one of the trio is still waiting at the barrier, she walks through the doors, having been searched and questioned and whatnot, it is always the case with this child, she must look wicked or something.
And the mother flies barefoot through the upper floor of the terminal, like Zola Budd, as Stuart says, and flaps down the escalator on ungainly flipflops which you have to wear on an escalator, where she can see this tall daughter running towards her, and the escalator will not go fast enough, as she hurls herself into her daughter's arms, who holds her like a short person, which she is, her head rests on her daughter's chest, the roles reversed, and she weeps big hot tears of relief, the silly mother, but the daughter is weeping too, and they cling to one another after one whole year of no contact. And it feels sweet.
So now there is a full house, and the table is animated at mealtime, a million conversations going at the same time, the boyfriends, coming from small families, have both been warned about so many constant interruptions in a big family, but they seem to take everything in their stride, and I like them both.
And so we go on, and it is nearly tomorrow, and my heart is full and my smile is happy, and I could just burst into blossom, as my mother used to say.
I ran 2.10 miles, because the pedometer has somehow jumped on to recording miles, and I don't seem able to change it back to km again! Sometimes I am technologically challenged, although I am very good with machines that I can take apart and put together again, like the old roneo copying machine we used to have at Nombulelo. Just things with chips are not easily comprehensible to me. That is 3.37 km. It was lovely today, easy again. Perhaps it is after I have eaten bread the day before, that it is more difficult to run.
So disappointed today because Jess's flight was delayed, so she is only arriving tomorrow, a whole day wasted, although she will have a good time in Amsterdam, at a nice hotel, and with a temporary visa to explore the city.
I am feeling rather miserable too, because I have discovered that what I thought was an inconvenient mosquito bite is actually poison ivy, right right on my inner thigh, and it is probably, like the time I had it before, from peeing in the meadow. I am always really careful and look before I squat, but must have missed some. I have no idea why the ubiquitous winter-moth, whose caterpillars strive to eat every leaf on every tree in early spring, don't touch poison ivy. Why can't it work that they eat every scrap of poison ivy in the forest, so that it will be eradicated! My children told me that I must not pee in the meadow, most people pee in toilets in the house! But what am I to do while I am running and need to desperately? I am, after all, nearly 55 years old and have had four children, two at the same time for the last pregnancy, sitting on that poor bladder.
And it is so unfair, I who love the woods and the meadow, to be afflicted like this! It is like a spider that you have carefully captured in order to set free, biting you as you let it go. I am so disappointed.
What happens to a Queen Anne's Lace flower when it is going to seed.
She rushes around dropping boys off at different places, then puts her blue-sky shoes on, collars the dog, and off they go into the bright meadow, where grasshoppers leap away into the grass ahead of her, like dolphins at the front of a boat. White fluttering of small surprised butterflies as they zoom past, although she does not really zoom, and nor does Molly anymore.
She arrives home hot and sweaty, although it is a nice dry heat today. Feeds all the animals, and the birds. A little nuthatch comes when she throws peanuts out for them, creeps all the way down the tall pine, picks one up, then flies up to a perch where it has to work hard to crack the shell. Enter another nuthatch, who, instead of getting its own, steals the first one's nut! The dominant one then proceeds to eat the nut, while the first nuthatch flies back to its station on the pine, telling itself off with little soft peeps. "Next time, I swear... next time!"
And then it is cleaning, tidying, as she is not a very good housekeeper, does the bare minimum, in fact, so for the past few days has been on her hands and knees, vacuuming under things, in corners, sending all the spiders scuttling, rescuing a few and putting them outside. Wiping surfaces, dusting, putting things away that had almost found another permanent home. She supposes it is good to do occasionally, but her nose suffers, and her eyes itch and gum up, her ears and throat are scratchy. Is it really worth it?
She hopes her daughters will be pleased with her effort. She goes to wait at the airport for the first one, the oldest, and is almost beside herself with excitement, so that after 35 minutes, when she finally sees the beloved face, she rushes out of the barrier behind which everyone stands, and she and her beautiful daughter kiss and hug and hug again, with everyone looking on. She is smiling widely and tears creep out of the corners of her happy eyes. Twelve days of being able to hug her whenever she wants, to look on her with all the love of 31 years.
This is Emma the last time she was here, on Christmas Day last year.
Flying Thistle seeds, so delicate, so perfect, beautiful.
That is very hard to say actually, say it out loud as fast as you can, "Flying Thistle Seeds"! It is a real tongue-twister, particularly for me, as for some reason I emphasize the 'th' sound, sticking out my tongue more than most people do. One man I met a long time ago told his wife that for the longest time he thought I had a speech impediment!
My friend Penelope, who is a speech therapist, theorised that for some reason it was an important sound for me when I was little and that is how I acquired the pronounced "tongue-sticking-out" habit. I never even knew that I did it until I was an adult and people pointed it out. Tim and the boys laugh at me a lot every now and then, for example when I say "Three-thirty" when asked the time. They are mocking me but it is not nasty. I always feel a bit stupid though, because I saw myself being interviewed on tv when I was about 38, and it is so strange to see yourself on film, my hands waving about in the air, gesticulating left, right, up, down and centre while I talk, and then this stupid tongue reaching out to pronounce 'th' where no one else's tongue thinks of going!
I have been working all day (well, when I have not been ferrying boys, whose road-test is next Thursday), getting ready for the girls to come. Such anticipation! So much work, cleaning and making beds and washing and whatnot! And all I want to do is read my book! But I have just managed brief reading interludes, while waiting for the water to boil for the pasta this evening, and while I was eating my lunch outside under the umbrella with the black dog for company. We are all completely hooked on books at the moment, except for Nick, who is about to start Blood Meridian, by Cormac McCarthy, who is the darkest writer I know!
So, tonight, some more eyes, the gentlest eyes of Molls, the black dog, the nearly 10 year old faithful one, with clouding eyes, strong heart, and an epileptic brain which attacks itself every few weeks.
I didn't run today, just didn't have a chance. Well, while I was reading I might have had a chance, but then I wouldn't have known what happened next, now would I?
For some reason, the water in the ant-moat of the humming-bird feeder has become irresistable to my bees. Even though there is no sugar in that, and they can't get to the sugar-water in the actual feeder. It is a mystery. And every day at least one commits suicide there by drowning. I am constantly fishing out little dead bee-bodies.
The humming-birds don't seem to mind the bees at all, and the bees tend to ignore them. I suppose they are used to sharing flowers.
I ran 3.2 km today, in about 21 minutes, which is 7 minutes per km, which is not bad, really. But where yesterday all my muscles and tendons and bones and toes and elbows and lungs all worked together in symphonic harmony, today was a struggle. Why is this the case? Another mystery for my day.
Sometimes I find myself struggling to puzzle out what someone has said to me, even though we are speaking the same language, English. Yesterday I was completely non-plussed by a message about Nick's costume for the play, which included two pairs of "leather tie shoes". My mind saw a tie as the thing men tie around their necks when they want to dress up. Then I thought it must mean lace-up shoes. Which apparently it does, but why not say lace-up shoes? Even my American friend didn't know what a "tie shoe" was! And because I am a foreigner here I always think that I need to find out what this or that expression means, it is up to me, it is somehow my obligation to do the most understanding.
Tonight I have a picture of my eye. Almost a smile. The colour in a face. Like a shard of sea-glass, blue-green. And the old crows have walked all around it, laughing their heads off.
Blackberries picked near the bee-yard. There are SO many - delicious! They remind me of mulberries, which I long for almost as much as I miss guavas. I recently discovered a huge mulberry tree near the sports grounds of the school next to ours, although it is a slightly different species from the one found in South Africa.
Every year when our enormous mulberry tree came into fruit my mother threatened to cut it down (well, have it cut down, she couldn't even change a light-bulb) because of the wicked starlings, who delighted in excreting in purple abundance over her clean white sheets drying on the washing line. My dad always managed to placate her though, even doing some of the re-washing himself a couple of times! We had a washing machine which washed everything in a tub, then you had to run the wringer on top of the machine, and carefully feed everything through (keeping your fingers and hair free!) to take out as much water as possible before you pegged everything on the line in the bright summer sunshine to dry. And later you went to get it all in, carefully folding each item with your mother, the lovely aroma of sunlight remaining on the cotton sheets you slid into at night in your lovely cool bed.
In 16 Cross Street, our beloved Grahamstown home for 15 years, we had a beautiful loquat tree, in the slender space between the outside flat and the house, which also housed our vegetable garden. It was a prolific happy tree, and when in fruit, was visited by wonderful fruit-bats who gorged on the sweet loquats. There were always plenty of loquats for our family and for theirs. Their swooping bodies would swarm the tree at dusk, their little mouse-faces, their beautiful skeletons almost observable in those leathery wings.
They shared a love of large white areas with the starlings of my childhood, so our north-facing wall was always splattered with dark Jackson Pollock splashes. The woman next door became irate because they abused her pristine walls as well. She tried really hard to force me to cut down that tree. But as I pointed out to her, it was only for a short time of the year, and the rain washed everything clean fairly frequently, so I refused, preferring the enchanting bat-life to an emptiness in the garden and clean walls.
This memory reminded me of an old drawing I did of our little doomed baby fruitbat fast asleep on my hand. The dear little exotic creature with whom we tried so hard, Batman, who would hang on the bedroom curtain while we were away and when we entered the room he would clamber across to reach us, so happy, little squeaks of joy. Who would hang like this, anywhere on us, and fall fast asleep, after exhausting himself practicing his flying, hanging upside down from a finger, those strange webby wings flapping away, pure instinct, with no mother to teach him. Jess would sit with him for hours on the swing, pushing off idly with her foot every now and then, while feeding him or examining him intently.
He stole our hearts (well, not Tim's) and we all wept at his loss. When you feed and care for a creature you can't help but love it. I still think of that time as an amazing experience from which the girls and I derived so much, even though he made Tim terribly ill, and for whose recovery I am eternally grateful.
I ran 3.12 km this evening, with the late sun pointing out the glowing beauty of certain trees for my attention. I felt so good, hot and sweating, but easy in my body, my limbs working in synchrony, ready to run on and on through the fields, toward the dark trees, past hidden loud deer hurtling away in the undergrowth, past yellow flowers glowing in the last flare of the sun, down the path made by the once babbling brook, up through the lilting sunset songs of unknown birds, but my feet took me home, where I wanted, after all, to be.
We went to watch polo today in Hamilton, about 15 minutes' drive from our house. By the end of the 2 hours, Tim and I had decided that it was a bit boring and weird, and I felt rather sorry for the horses who get hit a lot with the ball, sometimes deliberately. One penalty was being shot at the goal-post where we were standing, and the defending team leader yelled to his team-mates, "Deflect the ball with your horse!" Poor bloody horse! A man who was hit by a ball was taken off and seen by the EMT, hailed as a hero for coming back on to the field, while the poor horses are hit constantly with no accolades whatsoever. Do they really like it? I have no idea. Judging from this horse's expression I don't think he/she likes it very much. I think horses are really stupid to allow us on their backs at all.
When I woke up it was hot already, and my ankles and head ached. But I put on my blue-sky running shoes and off I went with the black dog. I ran 3.4 km, 2 km rather slowly, the last like a horse bolting for home! When I give myself permission that this will be the last circuit, my body just takes off, happily outdoing itself!
Tim went off early with one of his club members to a nature reserve in New Hampshire, where he saw Ospreys and Grey Herons feeling their huge babies on these funny untidy nests. A few couples build their nests on dead trees so that one tree will be a kind of heron colony, with a stick nest on the very top, then several untidy nests on lower rungs. Right now the young ones are almost ready to fledge, so the nests look too small to fit the big babies, let alone an enormous adult with huge feet! Such beautiful birds.
When he arrived home I asked him if he had seen anything good, and he said, "You'll be so jealous when I tell you everything I saw," but I replied that I would just be so happy that all these creatures are alive and doing well in this little reserve, it warms the cockles of my heart.
When we first moved to America we rented a house overlooking the ocean, such a very beautiful view. To see the sea in all its moods, the big storms coming over the vastness of it, the changing light. The ebb and flow of the tides were part of my daily experience, I knew without looking after a while, exactly what the tide was doing at that particular time.
When we had to move away I believed that I would not cope without the ocean, but for the past five years I have lived here with the woods and meadow as my backyard and they too have become a never-ending source of delight and discovery. I look forward to entering the magical realm of the meadow every day, you come through the leafy forest road, up a little hill, and then out into the brightness of the open meadow, where there is an abundance of life, birds, butterflies and bugs in summer, radiances of colour in the autumn, white wonders of deep snow and enigmatic animal tracks in the winter, and new green life each spring.
I really believe it is the answer to life. To find this delight in the little things, the everyday things. To savour the earth, to eat of its berries, to revel in its warmth, to acknowledge and appreciate. Looking, always observant and curious. Discovery. I wish everyone could have a little meadow of their own.
When we were little my best friend and I always drew a lot, and by the age of 10 or so we always drew horses. I remember how awkward their weird feet were, the hocks, the hooves. My very first oil painting, at the age of 12, was a mare and her foal. Pictures of horses are mostly overdone and can be sentimental and cloying, but I have attempted another drawing of a horse - a horse dreaming of flight, the harness fallen away. Faster, faster!
Paper Wasp and Dun Skipper chatting over their morning milkweed nectar.
When you lick your lips you discover again that we come from the sea. Sweat drips off red faces. You don't want to complain because it is summer, after all, but really, it is too hot and humid and thirsty. The black dog pants constantly. The ancient cat lies flat on the tiles and then gets up and moves often because it is not good to leave old bones in one position for too long. She loves the dog's water bowl.
You work hard most of the day, cleaning out the garage which has been accumulating dust for about a year, and grass everywhere from the bale you have for the piggie's bedding and food. After hot hours and a couple of trips to the dump, it is all ordered and swept clean, ready for working at the workbench your dad made mostly from driftwood and an entire weathered table-top or door found on the beach. You thought he would always be here, but at least it is good to see his workbench still there, strong and heavy. And some of his old old tools, that you think belonged to your grandfather, his dad. He brought them over one year, all wrapped up in an old fabric tool-keeper, which probably belonged to his father too. They must have weighed his suitcase down so much!
Eastern Tiger Swallowtail visiting my thistle.
My father. So curious and knowledgeable about so many things. And he could be ridiculously stubborn and bloody-minded sometimes. Once when he and my mother went over to England to visit friends and relations, he took a chameleon with him! He wanted to show his mother what a chameleon looked like! So he settled it in a little box with some greenery and airholes, packed it in his carry-on luggage, and off they went, my mother completely unsuspecting. Of course she was horrified when she found out, and justly so. My grandmother, however, was suitably charmed and impressed by the little creature, and my grandfather was taught how to half-kill flies to feed it, so that the fly was still moving, otherwise the chameleon wouldn't eat it. They learned how to stroke it very very gently, just the way it liked, and it stayed with them. My father and mother travelled all over the British Isles for 6 weeks, checking in on my grandparents and their little treasure periodically, and then my dad repeated the hand-luggage trick and brought it all the way home to South Africa, where he set it free at 10 Forest Drive, in the hedge in his garden where he had originally found it. And what a story it had to tell all the other chameleons!
First day of another heat-wave. Scientists have determined that instead of 1 or 2 hot summers each decade, there will be up to 7 heatwave summers each decade over the next 30 or so years.
Think of everything that will be affected. Crops, animals, birds, flora, and people. Last time there was a bad heatwave in Europe up to 50 000 people died as a direct result of the heat!
I will have to run early in the morning or late in the evening, and today I managed neither again. My right leg has been suffering for some reason. Tim massaged my sciatica last night for ages last night, but it is still excruciatingly painful at odd times. I thought a run might fix it, but it was not to be.
This evening there were beautiful lightning flashes from a convectional thunderstorm, then fat drops splashing down, but not very much for the thirsty soul. Lovely smell of rain though.
I did this drawing of Tim tonight, he agreed to pose, but soon dosed off, so it was hard to do the lovely hands holding the book. So this is Tim yielding to Sleep, sailing away to dreamland.
Got out while I was bringing all the groceries inside.
Went for a walkabout, on those skinny, crooked legs.
Squinted in the hot bright sunlight coming up the stairs to the deck.
Then lay stretched out as far as she could stretch, looking for all the world like a miniature tiger rug, if tigers came in the colours of a calico cat.
Every time she lifted her head to look up at me affectionately, I laughed out loud at her, as her little face looked all lopsided, the fur on the side she was lying on pressed flat against her skull, giving her a comical expression.
Dear little cat.
A kindness for today
At the checkout counter at the grocery store I chose the wrong cashier, you know when you are standing in the queue and you realise you've made a misguided decision, but you've already committed yourself to this line and perhaps you've already started unpacking your carriage/trolley. But you watch the cashier looking puzzled and working really slowly, unsure of everything, and your heart sinks.
So you carry on unpacking your full carriage, hopefully optimistic that things will work out when she gets to your stuff. You notice an old man watching you unpack, he is in the next line, and you look up a couple of times, because he is staring at you. Then he mouths, "Nice." And you wonder what he means. He is standing with his wife, who seems to be in charge of unpacking and paying, he is just a hanger-on. He keeps on staring, and eventually you look up again into his eyes and he mouths, "You look nice." and you mouth "Thank you" without thinking, because he has just paid you a compliment. You wonder briefly if he is a dirty old man, but he turns away then, helps his wife as they leave the store, and you feel sure that he was genuine, you decide he was because it makes you feel good.
And of course you are still stuck in the store, with the WORST CASHIER IN THE WORLD. Finally she starts on your items, and you discover that she is teamed with the WORST PACKER in the world. I have nothing against mentally challenged people, but I bring all my own bags, which are large and roomy and can carry a lot, then I carefully unpack my groceries in order so that all the cold things will go together, all the vegetables are at the end so they don't get bruised by having canned goods stacked on top of them, for example. He treats my ecologically sound bags like small plastic bags, putting in just a few items and then plonking them haphazardly in the carriage. I take out a few and tell him he can put more things in them, but he finishes them and starts using the dreaded plastic bags for the rest, which is so unnecessary. I don't want to seem like I am being nasty to a mentally challenged person, so I grit my teeth and leave him be.
At last, it seems like hours later, everything has gone through the cashier's hands, through the packer's hands, into the bags, and it is time to pay. The total is $214.65. She asks if I want cash back. I say "Yes, forty please," in my best American accent, because people don't understand forty how I say it. She thinks for a long time and then rings up $244.65 and asks me to hit the "yes" button to approve it. I know this is wrong and she will get into trouble for the loss of $10 to her till, so I say helpfully, "No, it's 254." She looks at me furiously, "You want $50 now?" and I smile nicely and repeat that it is 254 and her total is wrong. After a long time spent staring at the screen, saying, "But 214 + 40 is 244, isn't it?" she realises her mistake and rectifies it, only she hits the wrong button and the slip starts twirling out of the machine, without me having done my little sliding-the-card bit. She looks angry and scared and calls the managing cashier, tells her that she thought I was giving cash and so sent it through as a cash sale. I keep quiet and let them think it is my fault, follow the managing cashier obediently as she pulls the front of my carriage through the crowds to CUSTOMER SERVICE, where we wait patiently for another 15 minutes until we can be served.
I felt so sorry for her in the end, those sad eyes, that empty face.
I didn't manage a run or a drawing today, so here is a photograph of the afternoon light on the way home from the meadow with Molly.
I forgot to write about running yesterday. It was tough, so hot, about 90F, super-humid, and after running 3.5km, and thereafter taking a cold shower, my face took 45 minutes to return from beetroot to its normal colour! And it was a little rosy for a long time after that too!
Today was lovely, soft and damp, 66F, positively cool! I ran 5.14km. Molly refuses to go down Babbling Brook Hill, absolutely refuses, because she knows that it is hard on the knees, the lungs and the soul. It took me 41 minutes, which means 8 minutes per km, which isn't terribly good, but still.
So this Gulf Oil Disaster. It is such a mess, such a terrible mess. It is incomprehensible to me that we continue to do this kind of thing, we do not learn. The ocean is not endlessly able to fix itself. The earth is not infinitely available for abuse.
Obama put a moratorium on oil drilling for six months and immediately was taken to the courts, the plaintiffs claiming that too many people would be out of work if they were to stop drilling.
Here's the thing. We need to put all ALL ALL our resources into weaning ourselves off all the products that contain oil, like pesticides, a petrochemical product which enters our bodies through things like apples, bananas, cantaloupes, carrots and broccoli are all rife with these chemicals. plastics. All plastics are made from petroleum, and are easily absorbed by meat, cheese and other fatty foods. Cosmetics, medicines, soaps, sunscreens, hair products, clothing, tampons, etc. The list is endless.
And all our resources should be going into alternative forms of energy, like solar, wind, hydro-electric power.
The way to find money to do this is to dismantle the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. In the former, tribalism will take over as soon as the Americans depart, which is supposedly next year, according to plan, so why not just hurry the withdrawal up by a few months? I'm afraid that we have to leave countries like that to their own devices, it is too dangerous to waste another minute there, another billion dollars every two days! It is ridiculous. All we are fighting for is control of the oil, and we don't need it, the world doesn't need it, not in such vast quantities.
We have brilliant minds here in America and elsewhere in the world, let them get to work to solve these problems, put a moratorium on drilling for oil in the ocean forever!
It is unimaginable that we will go on doing the same thing, I even heard someone on the radio today saying that what we have learnt from this oil spill will do us well in the next disaster! So there WILL be another one, but don't worry, we learned stuff the last time around. Oh yes, like how long a brown pelican takes to die, in agony, drowning in oil? Or a dolphin coming up for air, and slowly suffocating from oil coating its blowhole, its breath, unable to swim through brown oily water, the clear blue only a memory now, and then not even a memory. Just death, death and more death, for months, for years, whole species extinct!
It is the same with nuclear power. I cannot and never could understand how after Chernobyl anyone with any intelligence at all could possible imagine building another nuclear power plant. And yet they did, and they continue to do so. The spent fuel from these plants takes 10 000 years to be broken down. 10 000 years! How can you even begin to think about such a number with a clear mind? How can you imagine that there will never again be human error which will cause another disaster, which could be fatal to the earth this time?
We need to put a moratorium on greed. We need to listen to the earth. We need to care.
I love this flower, it is considered a noxious weed by some, but is actually good for tomato plants when grown nearby, also beneficial to lettuce. There is usually a little red centre to the umbrel, and this is where Queen Anne pricked her finger while making lace.
It reminds me of my mother, who learned to make lace when she was in her 70's! She just set her mind to something and then did it. For her 80th birthday we gave her a computer and she learned how to use email so that she could better communicate with us in America, and with others all over the world! She was an extremely intelligent woman, who should have been a doctor or someone amazing like that. Queen Joan.
We only have just one life, and what does one do with it? I think that women often don't reach their full potential because they are weathered down like rocks at the shore, by pregnancy and childbirth, the raising of children and the keeping of the home.
Women spend so much time doing housework, which is the most ridiculously boring occupation. Even babies can be really tedious, when you have to watch them constantly, cater to their many needs of being kept dry and full-tummied. And all you long to do is read a book! I mean, I loved all my babies, but they are trying when you have them full-time! I remember when the boys were tiny, I seemed to be a kind of cow, just producing liters and liters of milk, feeding them and changing them and hoping that they would sleep long enough, at the same time, for me to have 20 minutes to myself! And how lovely it was when the girls came home from school, I would long for them, and overwhelm them with talking, hugs, attention. They were capable of intelligent conversation, of doing things for themselves.
I think the washing machine is the greatest invention ever, and so much of obstetric and domestic life in the Western world is easier due to technology, so I am glad that I am a woman living here in the 20th and 21st centuries, in that respect, but I am sad that we live in an era where we are killing the earth, causing mass extinctions, raping the ocean floor for oil, stomping away from the natural world in our quest for more. More things, more possessions, more ways of escaping from the tedium of life in video games, virtual reality, drugs, the 3-minute sound-bite or video.
Perhaps there will be another transformative turnaround, which is in the nature of humankind, towards a more spiritual connection with the earth, towards solar and wind energy, gardening, growing good food and not just corn, towards treating animals as sentient beings worthy of care and respect, towards quieter pursuits like reading, playing imaginary games, which all my children have done with wonderful creativity and abandon. (When the boys came to America they couldn't at first find anyone who played such games, but then they gravitated towards kindred spirits like Matt P. and instructed several other children of the neighbourhood in their inventive ways.)
We we'll live with optimism, doing our bit, hoping others will too.
Here is a quick little drawing I did of Nick sitting waiting his turn at the orthodontist this afternoon, huge hands holding the magazine, this long-limbed child of mine.
So there was once this crook called Leo, 6ft 3in, 300 lb, scary-looking dude! He sold a nice-looking car (on the outside) which was not actually such a nice car once you looked at everything else to do with the engine, the frame, etc., to the unsuspecting and rather naive Bouwer couple. Even though they are both in their fifties now, they can still be somewhat gullible, believing in the best of people, only to be disappointed, time and again.
So they return this lemon of a car, do all the fancy paperwork and eventually, they get their money back! Yay!
So, she looks again on Craigslist, and after a few miss-steps, she finds this amazing ad, which is basically an essay detailing all the pros and cons of the owner's car, almost akin to a praise-poem! And, he is willing to bring it all the way up to their town, to be seen by the old town mechanic.
He turns out to be a short Bulgarian man, the angel to Leo's devil. He has taken good care of the car, and is even willing to go down in price. She is so happy and relieved, that she wants to feed this man delectable tea with scones and jam and cream, but instead they take him home to complete the paperwork and give him coffee and delicious cold watermelon. He restores their faith in humankind.
And the boys, the boys are overjoyed, ecstatic, leaping about like puppies, big smiles, grateful hugs and kisses.
Maybe you always have to go through some kind of trial by fire. To appreciate the good.
Walked the meadow today, I have had a sore leg and am giving it a rest. Tomorrow I will run again.
And the story is having a rest too. In Campagny will return after my daughters have left, at the end of the first week of August. In the mean time I will anticipate their arrival with great happiness, then make the memories while they are here, then live on those memories until the next time. Which is what my mother taught me. You see, you really do turn into your mother.
A drawing of a black-eyed susan plant. In South Africa, the black-eyed susan is a beautiful creeper, with little orange flowers with the darkest blackest centres, so dark that you can't see the bottom. Which is what eyes are like really, you can't see the bottom, you can't see into a person's very soul, there is always something hidden, something not open to you, no matter how well you know and love them.
So, look at this picture and imagine you are in a meadow, the sun beating down on your head, lucky you wore your son's Celtics cap, so the sun does not burn as hard, and the mosquitoes can't bite your head. There is a pleasant buzzing all around you as the bees land heavily on the little yellow Celandine flowers, the petals willingly bending under their weight.
Everything is super-alive this morning, everything standing straight up after the lovely rain, all the stems full of sap, refreshed and strong. Every little creature ventures out into the moist meadow, the tortoise beetles, the bees, the grasshoppers, the butterflies. And wasn't Refrigerator Corner wonderfully cool?
What a lovely walk, hot and humid, celandine blossoming, radiant purple thistles, the second round of milkweed blooms, and everything baking under the hot hot sun, the wide blue sky.
On Friday night our oldest American friends took us out to dinner for the boys' birthday and for Tim's birthday. The picture is not that good because Tim forgot to show the waitress how to focus, but captures the happy spirit of the occasion nevertheless. So this is instead of a drawing tonight.
In Campagny (continued)
Beeze woke Luca when the sun came up, by calling his name in her strange way, from the mouth of the cave, "Looker, Looker! Wake up!" His stomach was concave with hunger, but his head was much better.
He hadn't been walking for very long when they came to a large clearing, where a long white building could be seen among gardens. There were several docking stations with white vehicles parked next to them. Luca vaguely remembered seeing similar designs from long ago.
The little green parrot seemed ill at ease here. She perched on a young oak tree near one of the doors and told him where to go but would not enter the building with him. So he had to go on all by himself. He did not feel any better than she did. He entered what seemed to be the main door, to find himself in a beautifully lit area, natural light coming in from skylights in the roof, feeding sunlight to a veritable jungle growing around a large pond with water splashing continuously out of the fish-mouth of a statue in the middle. He had never seen anything like it. It stopped him in his tracks with its beauty.
"Can I help you?" asked a young man, eyeing Luca's numerous-pocketed coat with some suspicion.
"What is this place?" asked Luca.
"This is the western edge clearport." replied the youngster. "What do you want?"
"I need to find Norena Skull-Engraver," said Luca. "It is very important that I find her."
"Oh yes, it's always VERY important, " responded the young man. " What do you want with this woman?"
"I need to tell her something, and I know she will want to hear it..."
"How do you know?"
"It really is very important but I can't tell just anyone..."
He could see that the young man was getting annoyed with him, he tended to have this effect on people.
"I need to ride in a flier to First Town, please." he blurted out.
Just then a young woman with a good face walked into the beautiful room, which was acquiring an unpleasant ambience from Young Annoyed Person.
"Hello, I'm Jada Airbat. And you are...?"
"Luca Leonid" replied Luca, grateful that someone was here to rescue him from Young Annoyed Person. "
"Well I'm going to First Town. . Just give me a few and I'll be there. Wait at Elephant landing for me. It's just outside to your left." and she made a face at Young Annoyed Person.
Luca hurriedly retreated after thanking her and left the watery room to find Beeze still perched in the same place, blending in with the leaves.
"I've got a ride!" he told her, and he thought she looked happy. He was beginning to sense her moods from her looks, even though parrots' faces were not very expressive.
