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.
You can't really rely on 12 and 13-year olds to not get carried away with throwing paint around, or to put a sheet of paper on the table so that it covers the entire table, can you? So we ended up with splatters of red, yellow and blue paint all over several chairs, and the floor all around the two painting tables was a wonderful mixture, into which one intrepid child who volunteered to "clean up" happily danced around with bare feet, then asked me to give her permission to go barefoot "pieds nus" (feet that are nude), for the rest of the day, seeing as she could never put her shoes back on those filthy feet again.
So I called the receptionist to ask the janitor to bring me a mop. She exclaimed, "Oh dear!", without even knowing what it was for, and when the janitor arrived he tutted and fumed at the state of the floor, even though I had said all I wanted was to borrow a mop! Art is messy, and learning to clean up is surely a good thing for kids. (The janitor is actually a lovely man, compared to the last one we had, whose veins bulged whenever he had anything to do with me! He really had a passionate distaste for all things arty, for any sign of a free spirit.)
At the end of the day, I was sitting working at the computer, when the janitor came in with the woman in charge of the night-cleaning crew, who expressed her horror at the state of the floor by clasping her hand to her mouth and remaining speechless for several seconds. The paint was all cleaned up, but there was still a layer here and there of greasy charcoal from the elementary school students after our mopping. After she had composed herself she said that she would have to talk to the grounds supervisor because it takes much longer to clean the floor when it is like this. So no doubt we will be in trouble with the grounds supervisor. I felt like a naughty school-girl. Artists are just so misunderstood!
The New England Aquarium has built an entire new wing to accommodate sick and stranded sea animals, and just in time, as 135 sea turtles have been washed up on Cape Cod in the last couple of weeks, 100 of which were still alive. They suffer from hypothermia, having somehow lost their way while on migration and finding themselves in very cold seas. The aquarium workers slowly raise their temperatures over a couple of days, treat them and in a few weeks they will be taken back to their migratory route and released in the warmer currents.
"The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated." - Mahatma Gandhi.
In the morning, it is 31F (0.5C), so...
Pedometer - check.
Balaclava - check.
Hoodie - check.
Lovely new green down jacket - check.
Gloves - check.
Music in my head - check.
Space available for free-flowing thoughts - check.
Stretching exercises - check.
Run up and down Babbling Brook Hill five times - check.
Jump over fallen tree into meadow - check.
Greet meadow, which wags with all its grassy tails - check.
Run five circuits over the crunchy, frost-white ground, the earth hard and unyielding beneath my feet, my mind singing, counting, thinking - check.
Run one extra circuit to collect jacket hanging on Pin-oak, which stands proudly with the green jacket in its branches, pretending it has leaves - check.
Discover that I have run 5.86 km, at 6.18 minutes per km, my best speed yet!
A thought which took up a lot of space and time was about dragons, wishing they really existed, after watching How to Train your Dragon last night, which we all loved!
Dragon myths exist in many cultures, and there is an interesting difference between those of the East and those of the Western World. In Eastern images of dragons, they are large serpent-like creatures, but in the European tradition they have bat-like wings.
It is now believed that dragon myths evolved from the discovery of dinosaur fossils. There is documentation of one of these discoveries in China in 300 B.C. How wonderful, to imagine this creature they had never seen, these giant bones, this reptilian skull. In the movie we saw last night there were hundreds of different types of dragons, beautifully imagined and drawn, one of which looked like a puffer-fish with wings, the main character "Night Fury", a little bit like Stitch of Lilo and Stitch fame.
Fantasy novels are filled with dragons. I love Ursula LeGuin's creatures, and Anne McCaffrey's beautifully imagined world of human and dragon interconnection in her Dragonriders of Pern is one of my favourite series of books. And I loved the 'dragons' in Avatar.
Sitting on the couch in front of the fire with Matthew this evening doing more college application stuff, I was talking about how lovely it would be to ride a dragon, and he displayed great disbelief in my dragon-riding abilities. I was slightly indignant, as he justified his conviction with the fact that I won't even go on a roller-coaster. So I responded, "Well, a dragon is not a roller-coaster, is it? A dragon is a real creature, and my dragon would do exactly as I said." To which he replied, "Oh, ok, yes, I can just see you on your dragon, 'Not too high, not too fast, ok, slow down, little dragon!' and there you would be, moving at a ridiculous pace for a dragon, everyone else hurtling down cliffs and up mountains, and mom all dignified and unhurried."
So here is my little drawing for the day, a little friendly blue dragon, with a horse's head, a fat little cow-like body, bat-wings and a long primaeval tail. A slow and stately dragon. (But she is also brilliant at cliff-diving, better than the red-wing starlings at the Mary and Martha mesas near Tarkastad.)
It is a strange fact that Running gives me energy for the whole day. (And yes, it has a capital letter because it has attained a certain status!) Yesterday we only got out of bed at about 10.45 in the morning, and the day just sauntered along until it was suddenly dark, and I hadn't run, and by about 7 o'clock I was absolutely exhausted!
Today I ran again after two days' rest, 5.17 km, at a rate of 7.44 minutes per km, which is quite slow as it was hard going in the beginning. But then lovely, as your feet plod along the familiar trail, and thoughts are freed into the air, so many, remembering your dreams of the night before, thinking of your children one by one, giving each one due attention, looking back at last night's conversations, planning your day, this Sunday, the last day of the lovely long Thanksgiving 5-day weekend.
To my pleasant surprise, Matthew has written about the importance of Reading for one of his college essays. The college essay is a very important part of the application process, and several colleges give their own topics for the prospective student to follow.This topic was something to do with some issue of importance to you and perhaps to your generation.
And reading is so dear to my heart, it is part of my heart, part of my being, I am who I am because of reading, I learned to read at such a young age that I thought I was born being able to read!
Books took me through the long hours of asthma attacks, spent sitting up in my bed, my lamp the only one shining in the deep night. (The librarian at the primary school thought I was lying because I took out a new book every day, as we were only allowed one at a time. She became so angry with me that I was sent off to the headmistress, who listened to my story with raised eyebrows. She had the terrifying habit of talking with her teeth closed. She eventually telephoned my mother who confirmed my story, and I was allowed to leave, having missed an entire school period while these silly so-called educators argued about whether I had read a book or not!.)
Books were my best companions when my siblings had left home and I became an only child.
When I went away to university, our train broke down somewhere in the middle of the Karroo and I had to drag my luggage about a km to the bus which picked us up eventually. Said luggage consisted of a small suitcase of clothes, and a massive brown leather case filled with what felt like bricks, by the end of the journey, but which were actually all my favourite books that I had not been able to leave behind.
I still always have one in my bag, just in case I break down somewhere, or have to wait someplace. At the checkout counter in the supermarket I am the only person in the long line reading a book from my bag, not one of the magazines on the strategically placed racks.
So the essay made me very happy and is also rather good, encompassing how reading promotes imagination and creativity and all the things which go into making a whole person!
Tonight I made vegetable pie for dinner, using up everything I had in the fridge, including butternut squash, broccoli florets, green beans etc. The boys are passionately fond of my vegetable pie, but laughingly complained about the different textures, of all the things they would not usually choose to eat, and the lack of some kind of meat in the pie, which would make it "just a perfect vegetable pie", teasing me mercilessly, as only a mother's sons can do, their wide smiles making me laugh, such good-natured joking creating a warm little sun of familial contentment in which we all basked as we ate our meal.
This plant and goldfinches are misnamed in winter, when they both go dun-brown and grey.
I went for a long ramble through all the meadows today with the black dog, clambering over stone walls, blundering through the trip-wires of bittersweet, and getting hooked by buckthorn tendrils, so that my coat has another few little nicks in it, where the small white down feathers sneak out at times.
The sun shone sharply on the bare branches, and in the little Milkweed glade the shining silky seeds hung precariously on their pods, looking for the perfect gust on which to fly away.
Or floated diaphanously on the currents of air while others decorated the stark stalks of what is left of the the Mullein plants.
Everywhere I saw the little stars threaded through dusky leaves and dried-out stems.
I was going to run this afternoon but you have to do it in the morning, first thing, otherwise the world takes over and there is suddenly no more time, and it's dark.
Another big social occasion today, with people I love, all from my own country, speaking a familiar language, with a shared history. Sitting around the big table we laugh and shout and eat and argue and tell our stories, while the children play quietly downstairs.
When the children start rushing about, late in the evening, parents begin to collect their coats, round up their progeny, and the lovely dinner is over, everyone gives kisses and hugs until we meet again, and Tim and I get into our quiet car with no little children to calm down, no one to carry out of the car, fast asleep, when we have arrived home, just ourselves.
We arrive home to an empty house, into which our boys burst like forces of nature a few minutes later, the quiet shattered, our hearts happy, as we stand with our backs to the woodstove, discussing the movie they have just seen.
Another little vase of flowers for our hostess tonight. A rather blurry photograph.
The little fiery tree outside my art room at school.
The meadow must have been surprised to feel my slow footsteps this grey morning followed by the black dog. I gave myself a break, had no desire to run today. Everything bright-wet and dripping from the overnight rain.
For the fifth year we attend Thanksgiven, an after-Thanksgiving celebration at the home of friends in Natick, where they make another whole Thanksgiving meal for their friends, having had it with family the day before!
Most of these people we only see this one day of the year, they are mostly neighbours of the host family. So it is quite strange, because there are these people with whom you have fairly interesting and intimate conversations, but only on an annual basis.
The adults all look more or less the same each year, but of course, although we are consistently amazed by childrens' growth, all the little bodies have stretched a few inches, their faces lengthened, their abilities become more. Like the little boy who dashed around like a crazy person a few years ago, but today sits straight-backed and proudly at the piano, playing Beatles songs, one after the other, a small group of adults surrounding him, singing, "We all live in a yellow submarine....." The little girls we began with are now long-legged delicate beauties, skittish as deer. And those two babies from a few years back are now dear little girls, darling quaint characters reminding me of my own daughters such a long time ago now.
And at last we leave, my mouth tired from smiling so much, Tim's camera full of sweet photographs of the occasion, email addresses and blog-spots written on drawing paper with crayons, tucked away in my pocket, and then the long dark drive home through the cold night, a huge orange gibbous moon rising slowly into the sky, showing up on the horizon every time we find ourselves on a rise, then disappearing again and, a few minutes later, re-appearing unexpectedly to the left or right of its original showing, because, inadvertently and unobtrusively, the ribbon of road has shifted direction under the speeding wheels of our little car.
I was supposed to take an apple pie, but discovered that all the teenagers had eaten my apples two nights ago, and so instead I made more flowers. Matthew made the largish one in the middle, which you can't really see properly, but he told me that I could not take credit for that one, which is why I am mentioning it.
Freezing misty breath as I run past the solid ice of the birdbath, up the hill through the quiet forest, into the frosty meadow, where no birds sing except for the occasional irrepressible chickadee. Cold running, songs singing in my head, rhythmic pumping of the legs, of the heart, of the lungs. Eyes on the ground so that my brain can't comprehend how far the hill still steepens, trickery of the mind by itself. 5.12 km (7.25 minutes per km).
A detour through the second meadow reveals a whole copse of Milkweed, their gossamer seeds taking off with each gust of wind, little breaths of lightness, tiny fairy creatures drifting, floating, flying everywhere. An enchanted glade!
Thanksgiving. Tim and I were making up things we were thankful for last night:
Headlamps on cars.
The fact that we don't just see in black and white, like dogs.
Birds holding meetings on telephone wires.
Nutella.
That someone invented pencils of different softnesses.
Our bed.
Baby elephants.
Etc.
We have a Thanksgiving tradition with two other foreign families, and this year it was Tom's turn to host, so we travelled down the coast to his house where the eleven of us feasted on half a Turducken, which is a turkey stuffed with a duck, which is stuffed with a chicken! And these things also have no bones. Thinking about how they get the bones out is horrible. I was a bit wary, but it was actually delicious. I have never tasted duck, and still haven't. I think when it is my turn again I am going to try tofurkey.
Thanksgiving is the only original American holiday, and I like it because it celebrates what we have, and the tradition is for families to be together and to feast, and there is little commercialism involved, as there is with Christmas and Easter and every other Hallmark moment. I suppose it is sad for all the turkeys though. There is always a down side to everything, isn't there? And of course, when I think of it, that is an enormous commercial business, the raising of turkeys for Thanksgiving. Oy vay! My mind is rattling on and changing as it goes!
So the first Thanksgiving was supposedly held by the survivors of the group which arrived on the Mayflower, those who had been saved by Squanto, a Native American of the Wampanoag tribe, who could speak English as he had been enslaved by a British slave-trader but who had also met and become friends with the British explorer, John Weymouth.
About half the colonists had died their first winter because their wheat seeds would not grow, no one had brought fishing gear, and they had no idea which plants they could use and which might be poisonous.
Squanto taught the fifty or so who were still alive, how to plant corn, to fish and dig clams, to tap maple trees for syrup, and which wild plants could be used medicinally. By that autumn, the pilgrims had successfully harvested their first crops, built seven houses, a common space, and three shelters to store their excess food. They decided to have a feast to give thanks and invited Squanto and the Wampanoag chief, Massasoit. Ninety Native Americans showed up and there was a three-day celebration.
Wouldn't it have been wonderful of the colonists to continue to co-exist in peace with the natives of the country? Instead, as with every colonisation throughout history, the native population was exploited, murdered, moved to inhospitable places, and decimated.
Nevertheless, I do still like the idea of Thanksgiving. One year the girls surprised me by arriving on the doorstep the night before, which was wonderful. I missed them so much today.
We took flowers to Tom and Brita. Each one of us made a flower for the vase that I made.
Cold and blustery day. She runs through the wind, sometimes against it, her hair blowing out from the sides of her head, other times with it, buffered along like a little boat before the gale.
In the dry and rustling meadow she meets the flock of dark-eyed juncoes, which don't fly from her, rather flash from behind, flitting over her head and into the trees at the edge of Heartbreak Hill.
She revels in the cold, which burns her bare arms to a rosy hue. Chickadees sing happily, they seem to share her blithe spirits today. In the forest the trees sway and weave, talking with their soft gravelly voices, like old men sitting on the stoep.
As she enters the meadow, what may have been a sharp-shinned hawk, which had been gliding the gusts just above the trees, suddenly takes off with both wings beating, and she observes with wonder a white contrail, like that of an aeroplane, as it defecates into the wind!
She flies down Babbling Brook hill, exhilarated, against the strong wind, which pushes generously at her back on the uphill slog, and attempts to herd her, along with hundreds of whirring, whispering leaves. Her will is stronger though, and she eludes the wind, laughing in its face.
She and Molly run and run, 6.10 km, at 7.50 minutes per km, the same time as yesterday, although it felt much easier today, but it was at least an extra km.
And such is her mood that even when she suddenly has that terrible feeling, when your foot encounters something soft and squishy, which sticks to it like a little ugly cushion, she blames the neighbour's dog, deals with it, and carries on running.
It is a day for reveling, in the fact that the dam is full again, in the observation that the bees are eating the sugar syrup she has put out for them, in the wonder that easing into a hot lavender foam bath must be one of the most luscious sensations there are, in the sudden empathy with her black dog, whose legs look as though they feel as stiff as hers when she gets up from a sitting position, in the excitement that it is Thanksgiving tomorrow, which is a lovely holiday.
The Black Dog, several attempts at drawing her, but she would not keep still. She kept on getting too hot by lying too close to the fire, then too cold and getting up again to move closer.
Just when you think that you are really getting to be a better runner, you have a day where you stumble along, struggling with each step, until you have finally done 5 km, but with very little enjoyment, and rather slowly, 7.50 minutes per km.
At Refrigerator corner, there is a section where the ground has been cut away by the plough, and for the whole summer there were tall grasses growing right next to the step. Now they have all died off and of course my right foot, after happily tracing the narrow path for months, suddenly lost its way as the brain noticed the steep step, and went off the edge, which was quite painful. Our brains are very interesting things, because if there is a plank placed on the ground, we can all walk across it without the least trouble, but if you raise that plank a foot or more above the ground, most people will over-balance, quite literally.
And if you wear goggles which make everything look upside down, after a week or so your brain will adjust it all so that you see everything the right way up. Matthew has been learning about such experiments, which are fascinating.
My very dear friend turned 50 yesterday, which is a big milestone in one's life. She lives in Cape Town, which is my hometown. In the 80's she shared a student house with Tim, so I only met her a few years later, but we have been good good friends ever since, and have corresponded for years and years. She is extremely wise, and very very tolerant, and lives her life with a great deal of integrity. I am so glad she is my friend, and I wish her much happiness and wonderful hikes and lots of love for her future.
Three cormorants at Clark's Pond. We used to live opposite this pond, and walk past it to the beach every day. Now I go occasionally.
A family down the hill are blasting a new driveway to make it less steep, no doubt, and so on Saturday I saw a whole lot of working men who stared at me while I was preparing to run. Today was an overcast ominous day, and so I armed myself with my Swiss army-knife before I went running, and carried it the entire way in one hand or another as I had no pockets on the track-pants I was wearing. As one hand grew more and more clammy, it would be transferred to the other. Strange how clumsy it feels in my left hand, how correct in my right. People will think me crazy, but my history shows, I suppose.
I even practiced lunges in my mind, made sure that I knew which blade to open, so that in the event that I would ever have to use it, I would not flourish the little pair of scissors, or the tin-opener by mistake.
I ran 5.02 km at a rate of 7.27 mins per km, not that great, but I always get better with distance, which feels good, means I have developed stamina. The wild fountain grasses are Naples-yellow against the grey sky, quite beautiful. Looking at pictures from the same time last year, it is evident that the leaves disappeared more quickly this year. More wind, drier summer.
Matthew bought an A Flock of Seagulls record at a second-hand shop on Saturday, which has happily re-awakened our old record player, which we discovered for $10 at a yard sale a few years ago. I remember the boys were 13 or 14, and absolutely fascinated by this amazing 'technology'.
This is the generation which was born with a computer mouse in its hand, has grown up with constant access to the internet and the incredibly intricate and rapidly expanding technology of ipods, cellphones which are now mini-computers, text-messaging, video-chat, digital photography.
Yesterday ten-year old Gina stared in amazement as I put on a record, having never seen one before, and tonight Matthew is still fascinated by the fact that a piece of vinyl can store sound-waves which can then be played by a needle which transfers the vibrations caused by the original recording stylus, on to a diaphragm in a speaker which is then amplified so that we can hear it. I find this much easier to understand than how a tiny little flat metal thing can hold a million songs.
Analog sound is beautiful. Apparently analog recording captures the whole sound-wave, whereas digital only record "snapshots" of the soundwave, so it IS better.
So tonight we have been playing all the old records. I brought them all here, wouldn't let go of any of them. Like my books, they mark the journey of my life. There is Paul Gallico's The Snow Goose, and on the other side The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas, with Herbert Marshall and "supporting cast, sound effects and music". Lying on the carpet next to the big wooden "hi-fi" set which housed the radio and the record-player, my brother and I would listen entranced.
And here is the soundtrack of Mary Poppins, the very first record I owned. My friend Trish and I knew the words to every song on that record, and would sing with the same intonation as the original singers, including Glynis Johns' high nasal voice singing "Sister Suffragette".
I promised a picture of my sister for today, and here is one, although it is not quite her, but has something of her essence, a copy of one of my favourite images of her, taken by her boyfriend of the time, when she was about 21.
Due to the imminent arrival of visitors for brunch, the morning was spent, after waking up really late and leaping out of bed like frantic frogs, rushing about all over the house with brooms, cloths, and desperately trying to find hiding places for all the books and paper detritus which regularly litters one end of the dining room table.
And then they arrived, and there was much eating, talking, catching up, laughing and drinking around the table and later around the lovely radiating wood-stove, since it was VERY cold outside, and then it was suddenly dark and everyone watched a movie and then it was supper time and so I made our usual Sunday night fare, a gazillion pancakes (South African)/crepes (French and American) for all the people in the house, and the table was full again.
So there was no running, only a short sprint up to the beehives and back with Molly early in the day.
And we all sang to my sister who turned 68 today! Such big gaps we have in our family that when she turns 70, in two years' time, she will then be in her seventies, my brother in his sixties, and I will still be in my fifties.
My sister is thirteen years older than I am, so by the time I became a fully conscious person, at 4 or 5, she was already just about grown up, and left home to study nursing at the age of 18. I got her room when she moved out, that previously mysterious room of giggling teenaged girls, always sweet-smelling and filled with her pictures and delicate things.
She was removed from my very young life, as my brother was not. My brother was a living, breathing, large-as-life figure for me. We had a lot of physical contact, he tickled me, held me on his lap, protected me from things, picked me up and dusted me off when I fell down. He was always there, playing tricks, conducting explosive experiments, doing nasty things like recording my asthma attack on his massive Akai tape-recorder, learning poems with me, reading me stories when I was sick, getting into trouble with me.
Whereas my sister was this tall and beautiful grownup who swooped in every now and then, with or without the latest devoted and adoring boyfriend, to bring me presents, to fight with my mother, to revel in shocking us with gruesome nursing stories at the Sunday dinner table. I would gaze at her exquisite perfection, wondering when I would get those lovely bumps on the chest, when I would get to look like her. (It never happened. Except for the bumps on the chest.)
One day I was standing at the bus-stop outside the Junior School, wheezing my heart out, in the midst of a terrible asthma attack. (My mother had told me that I would never die from asthma, so I didn't ever really panic, just stood or sat stoically suffering. Of course, one can die from asthma, and people frequently do.) I wasn't allowed to carry the inhaler, because it was very dangerous if you overdosed, which many asthmatics had done, due to that terrible desire for relief. So I would frequently be stuck somewhere waiting to get home to the inhaler's antidote.
I was about seven years old, and my sister, my beautiful glamourous sister, came by on her Vespa scooter, in her official nurse's uniform, going home to her flat which happened to be near our school. She took in my affliction at a glance, swept me up on the back of her scooter like a white knight in shining armour sweeps the victimized maiden on to his trusty steed, and galloped off at top speed to a pharmacy, where she bullied the pharmacist to open an inhaler and allow me two puffs straight away. She has to use all her wiles, as the medicine was only available with a doctor's prescription, and he didn't know either of us from a bar of soap. He gave in, as many had before and would thereafter, and then, for me, this little girl with the useless lungs, there was suddenly instant reprieve, and then gratitude, and pride.
It was only when we were both adults with children of our own that we really got to know one another, that we developed that female affinity.
When my mother was in hospital a couple of months before she died, in terrible pain from a broken hip, the replacement of which had then become dislocated, lying in traction and basically losing her mind, we were all, my poor father, my brother, and I, helpless before all this suffering of our beloved wife and mother. Not my sister, who I again watched in admiration as she rode into battle, all her furious flags flying, ordering the nursing staff to do this and then that and to look sharp and do it NOW! And they followed her instructions, even as they regarded her with baleful eyes.
And as advocates for my mother, she and I persuaded my brother and my father, with the help of my parents' doctor, that my mother wanted to die. That she couldn't be put through another operation, another attempt at rehabilitation, more and more pain. And that we should respect that wish, and make her last days as comfortable as possible. My sister was very calm and collected as we explained the situation to them, whereas I was frequently just a puddle of tears. She is admirably cool in the face of chaos or tragedy, and this was no exception. And later, in one of my mother's few periods of lucidity, she explained the entire situation to her as well, and we received our mother's blessing.
So I know that she is a strong woman, still lovely in her older age, and I wish for her a wonderful year of more trips to beautiful places, of thoughtful discovery, of love amongst her extended family, and a continued bond of blood and womanhood that she shares with me. She is my moonbeam and I am her sunshine.
And as it is just too too late to draw, I will draw an image of her tomorrow, but instead, for today, here is a photograph of my gorgeous sister, when she was young.
We staggered out of bed at some unearthly hour for a Saturday morning, to attend a Rotary Breakfast at the boys' school, in honour of a number of students in leadership positions, amongst them both our sons! Although who knows where the certificates are, because the proud father, who was in charge of them, left them on a table somewhere, didn't he?
And there is an article about their artistic talents in the school newspaper, and another in the school's online website. Which does rather warm the cockles of one's heart. My twins, who are so unalike in every way, even down to their blood type, the one being A+, the other O+. My darling boys.
The breakfast was not my usual fare. I am unaccustomed to eating American pancakes, little ugly sausages and coffee. So later in the morning, when Molly and I were doing our stretching exercises before our run, I felt awful, headachy and weak, as though I would never be able to manage, until I pulled myself together and set off on a lovely 5.10 km run (at 7.15 minutes per km) which became smoother and smoother as the kms went by.
I was running happily along, with my triple-layer mind going nineteen to the dozen, counting breaths and singing at a different tempo, and thinking thoughts. Shimmying through the pin-oak leaves on Heartbreak Hill, thinking that Rustle of Spring, my grandpa Pop's favourite piece of music, should actually be called Rustle of Autumn, hypothesizing that maybe I have become part of the meadow and this is why those teenagers the other day couldn't see me, I was invisible Meadow-maiden, a new type of superhero! And of course, that is why the deer didn't notice me until I was right on top of them, just about!
When suddenly, trip, plop, and I am lying on my face at refrigerator corner! A small stick has caused me to fall, one of those nasty ones, that tricks one of your legs, then hits the other one to an unexpected sprawling position. And as I check all the appendages for breaks, and slowly find none, I ease myself up on my two pins once more, thinking that the meadow has actually just tripped me, that I am nothing but a silly old sentimental twit, with grass stains on her knees and scraped palms.
Stayed up to watch Toy Story 3 with Nick and Tim, very sweet film, made me cry, how ridiculous is that?
Tonight an old photograph of me and my dad in a boat.
We went to the Battle of the Bands tonight, to see Nick performing in the band Battery Foote. They were the last band on stage, out of about ten or twelve, and we sat through an interminable amount of noise in order to see them, only to find that they were cut short because of the time!
photo provided by Tim Bouwer
As a mother of one of the band members I am of course biased, but they did seem to be the best band by far. Their musicians are truly brilliant, innovative inventors, and of course the singer is wonderful!
So many of the bands were loud and obnoxious. It seems that there are many youngsters who are super-confident but with no knowledge of their own lack of ability, or maybe I am getting too old, or maybe everyone is tone-deaf!
It is still a particularly testosterone-driven activity, a rock band. There was one girl in a band of 5 boys. She was the singer and was absolutely awful, painful to the ears. The other girl was part of a band of three, with two boys, called 24Strings, which is a lovely name too. They took turns to sing, were humble and very good. She is quite phenomenal, in fact, and could easily have a career in music, writing and performing her own songs with a unique purity of voice and spirit.
Little snake sunning itself in the autumn afternoon.
Oh cough-cough-coughing in the night, but the daytime mostly free, so off we go on a run, a fast 3 km, at 6.15 minutes per km! Come back with aching legs, heaving lungs, beat-beat-beating heart!
Not enough time each day for all the things I want to do! Reading, painting, drawing, running, watching the birds, listening to the radio, having conversations, eating, drinking tea, writing, looking, walking on the beach, going to the library, gazing at the stars, talking to my daughters, watching movies, all those good things.
Instead I have to sweep, wash clothes, vacuum (about once a month), take the trash and recycling, that has built up for about 3 to 4 weeks, to the dump, spend time looking for an important item that is lost, cook a meal every night, try to rid the kitchen table of its epidermal layer of books, papers, images, magazines, pencil crayons, post waiting to be opened.
I wish for Evvie, the wondrous woman, the miracle worker, who cleaned our house for fourteen years, helping to raise all four children, teaching them isiXhosa, reminding them of their manners, using psychology to make them put things away (by hiding their favourite toys and telling the kid the toy was lost because he/she hadn't put them away!). Evelyn Madlavu, one of the classiest women I have met.
My mother always said that everything looked more beautiful under a sky with clouds, no matter what kind. She taught me all the real words for them when I was very small, whenever we drove anywhere in the car, like on the way to nursery school at Mrs Trembath's house on Ringwood Drive, "What kind of clouds are those?". And I would answer correctly and then we would sing at the tops of our voices, "Scotland the Brave" or "Old MacDonald had a farm" or some such.
I missed her today.
Well, I went for a run and I didn't drop dead, which I was happy about. Molly and I ran 4.23 km in just over 7 minutes per km, which wasn't bad. Had a huge coughing fit halfway along, then felt better.
Sometimes you get this amazing feeling, running, when, for a few moments, you are utterly unencumbered, by your body, your thoughts, you could almost float away....
Then you turn uphill and as suddenly your body is ponderous, your breathing laboured, and you are well and truly encumbered once more.
Sweet tall 11-year-old English Mastiff cross on the beach yesterday. At the moment I prefer animals.
Stopped at a traffic light tonight on the way home from school, one of those interminable rush-hour lights, I glanced in on an Indian family that I enjoy watching whenever I am stuck at that traffic light. They are always doing something interesting, and it is that wonderful extended family of grandparents, aunts and uncles, mother and father and two children, a girl and a boy, about six and eight years old.
Tonight the little boy was sitting on the top of the couch hanging on to two curtains and swinging this way and that as he sat watching a huge tv screen. The mother came outside to fetch something from the garage, and as she re-entered the house I watched intently to see her reaction to the curtain abuse. Sure enough, although I couldn't see her, he slowly released one curtain and then the other, and as I drove off he was climbing sorrowfully down from the top of the couch.
Drew this at a meeting this afternoon, a common doodle of mine, circles and loops. There was an official who used to conduct meetings when I worked for the Dept of Education and Training, which was the department which ran "Bantu Education", which was different from the other departments of education in South Africa, in that it set out to allow less knowledge, to use inferior books in a useless curriculum, to neglect its teachers so that they were never developed as they needed to be. One of the "grand plans" of history, a part of the constant subjugation of one group by another, which seems to always be happening somewhere or other in the world. The official came up after the meeting, looked down at my page full of doodles and told me disdainfully to carry on drawing my "little feminine scribbles", as though feminine was a terribly dirty word.
The legs and lungs vacation continues. We knew someone in Grahamstown a long time ago who had a cold, went for a run, and dropped dead. I would prefer that not to happen to me, so on Wednesday only, I think I will attempt a little run again.
So Molly ran and I walked on the beach today, me contemplating how incredibly beautiful it was, and how lucky I am in nearly every way, and Molly probably fixating purely on the yellow god-ball.
Walking along, safe and sound, I remembered a phone conversation Tim had with a very dear South African friend yesterday, who told us about his eldest daughter, an amazing kid who has always had an enormous social conscience. She worked as a volunteer in Palestine, before winning a scholarship to go to Oxford to do her Master's degree, which she has recently completed, her major area of research being Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) in Somalia.
And I wonder what luck it was that I was born into the family I had.
That I was loved and educated and encouraged to find my own "road less travelled".
That at an appropriate age I learned the pleasures of sex happily, with birth control readily available and relatively easy.
That I have loved literature and art and been able to live my life according to principles I have chosen.
That I have had four wanted babies, two of them popping out the natural way, the other two being born by C-section, which saved my life, and theirs.
That I am not a slave to my husband, sexual or otherwise.
That I have earned my own way my entire life, only in the last ten years in America earning less than my husband, and that partially because I only work part-time.
I read Alice Walker's Possessing the Secret of Joy in 1992, when it came out, and was shocked and horrified by the reality of FGM, a practice I had vaguely heard about only a few years before. I am utterly outraged by this "cultural tradition", which continues today more than ever! The number of women suffering and dying is expanding, even though, as early as 1952, a UN Commission on Human Rights condemned the practice! Although there is a blackout on information about sexual practices in Islamic countries, there is a lot of evidence to suggest that this is very common in Islamic countries, and in Egypt 90% of women are affected! FGM takes place predominantly in North Africa and the Middle East.
It is indicative of a complete disdain for women, that a tradition exists, one which women themselves carry out, whereby various levels of mutilation are carried out, some simply cutting off the clitoris, so that little or no sexual pleasure is felt, others going so far as to cut off the labia and basically sew the vulva closed, which then has to be cut open for intercourse and childbearing. Yes, that is what happens! Good grief, that we live in this world of such utter absurdity.
How do such things even begin? I am amazed (in my 20th and 21st century Western feminist mind) that women would let these things be done to their daughters, and participate voluntarily in such abuse. It is similarly incomprehensible that Chinese women had their feet bound for so many centuries, and much of the reasons are the same, so that women remain subjective and conformist and exist only to render sexual pleasure to the men in the society and to work and raise the children of said barbaric men.
And people are outraged about full-body scanners at airports, there are whole articles in the paper devoted to this new outrage! And other small-minded selfish and nasty people put up signs on the beach (which thankfully are ignored in winter) saying NO DOGS ALLOWED AT ANY TIME. Police Take Notice. And still others get all upset that homosexuals can get married in several states now, including ours, because "it is making a mockery of the whole institution of marriage". Since when did two men or two women getting married affect a heterosexual marriage in any way?
And the MFA has opened a new multi-million dollar wing, a beautiful addition, filled with the Art of the Americas, showcasing centuries of American art, from pre-history until today, and I feel vaguely guilty that I get to do amazing and privileged things every day, that I will be able to explore this new space, stand before beautiful images and sculptures, that beauty and pleasure exist in such a real way for me, while another little girl is brutally mutilated, on the other side of the world, to begin her life of psychological and physical servitude and torture.
Yesterday the boys went off to look at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, took the commuter rail down there, to spend the night with friends who are attending the school, to be collected today from South Station at about 2pm.
So Tim and I went to Swampscott, which is on the way, kind of, because Tim wanted to take long-exposure images of the sea for an assignment. The sky was stormy and the sea very wild and beautiful today, fascinating several walkers who stood and watched its power as did we.
However, the boys' train was delayed, so, having two hours longer than we had thought, we went into a restaurant for a late lunch, and the very pretty waitress spoke only to me the entire time, not wanting to be rude and stare at Tim's face. Looking at the red marks caused by the medication, one could take them for those unfortunate birthmarks that are called "port wine stains" in some quarters. Tim took this picture of me thinking about all this.
Yesterday I had to drive the boys' car home from the station where Nick had parked it before going to his Saturday morning course in Boston. I have no idea how to adjust the sound system, especially while I am driving, so had to listen to a cd they had burned. I like quite a lot of their music, so first came Kid Cudy, who is not too bad, then another 3 songs which were pretty good, I'm not sure by whom, and then a bad rap song began, and I, a captive listener, heard every word. And I know I am showing my age, but I think I would loathe this "music" no matter what age I was, with every second word a swearword, and disrespectful language towards women, and just a kind of awful misogynistic message in general. Why do these young black men want to portray themselves in this way? And why is this "music" so popular, even with my own children, who have been raised to respect women as equals?
So I'm driving along, through a small town, with the window down due to the beautiful sunny air of yesterday, when I come up behind a car with a huge brown bear-faced dog hanging out of the window, tongue happily flapping in the breeze, staring at everything going by, including me. And at a traffic light stop, I pull up beside another dog enjoying the weather, this time a tiny little chihuahua-type dog, all decked out in a coat, being held by a hand belonging to an unseen person, holding on to a kind of handle on the top of its knitted coat, otherwise it would be leaping right out of the window, such is its eager stance, its sniffing of the wondrous odour-filled air.
I didn't run today as I seem to have succumbed to Tim's cold, and my legs were a little stiff, so I gave them a holiday.
I just love these pods, they strike me as the most perfect shapes, and the winged gossamer seeds, like air personified.
The leaves were all rimed with frost this morning on our run, which was 5.6 km, although I have no idea what time I made, as I was wearing no watch and have very kindly donated my phone to Matthew for three weeks, because his phone has died, and he can get another one in the first week of December which is when we are due for an upgrade.
He told me that not having a phone made him feel as though his daemon had been cut off. (Anyone who has read Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials will understand, as each character in those books has a wonderful daemon in the form of a companion animal, like a jaguar, or a moth, or a ferret, which is the manifestation of the person's soul.) Which is a little scary, that these little pieces of technology which connect us to one another are SO important to teenagers.
The only time I thought I might miss it was if I broke down on the highway, but then someone would certainly stop soon enough to help, so I would be fine. A few years ago I had a flat tire on the highway, and pulled over to change it. Before I even had the boot open to get out the jack etc., two men had stopped their cars to offer help. When I told them thank you, I was fine and accomplished in changing tires, having been Jack Radford's daughter, they nevertheless absolutely refused to let me do it, and actually helped one another, although they were perfect strangers, to change my tire in record time, rather like the mechanics in the pit stops during car races.
So my poor Tim has become a monster. He has so much sun damage (actinic keratosis) from growing up in Kimberley in South Africa with a very fair skin, that the dermatologist suggested a cream be used for at least two weeks which targets all the spots, turns them into lesions which then take a few weeks to scale off and leave the skin better than before, and cured. The other method that can be used is to burn off each spot individually, over time, with liquid nitrogen. This is the method I would have chosen for myself. What he chose is basically topical chemotherapy.
Tomorrow is the two week mark, and for about ten days his skin has been raging and red, and he feels as though someone has sandpapered his face. The first couple of days that it looked so awful I actually felt so guilty, like such a bad person, because even though I was trying really hard, I didn't like him very much, or have much sympathy. But then my wise young daughter Jess pointed out to me that part of what you love about a person is related to their looks in no small way, no matter how much you might deny it, and also, that if you have lived with this person for 26 years it is naturally difficult to come to terms with him suddenly looking like a leper. My horrid feelings ended with me confessing them to Tim, after which I felt much better about myself and about him, although he probably didn't for a while, poor man.
He has been sequestered, working alone from home all week, his family his only social contacts, which doesn't help matters very much, as we are such social creatures, needing work and other kinds of interactions to feel ourselves fully human. But he must be a very strong character, to look at himself in the mirror like that and still be more-or-less alright. I would just go to pieces, I think.
I can't wait for the time to go past, all the lesions to scale off and heal, when he will be my own familiar husband again, Rodin's John-the-Baptist, the beautiful boy I first saw in the Nombulelo Staffroom in 1984.
"The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated." - Mahatma Gandhi.
