Day 305

Can't believe I still can't upload images, but that has kind of been my day today, one of those frustrating days.  


Most people have a pattern to their days, human beings seem to thrive on structure, as can be seen from raising children, who tend to flourish on set bed-times, for example, when they know how the day will always come to a close, with a warm bath, a story, hugs and kisses and maybe a song, and then drifting off to sleep.

We also live according to opposites.  Days that are good can only be good if they are compared to bad days.  We feel intense joy on the other side of deep sadness.  Light and darkness, sun and storm, a morning when you go downstairs to be greeted by a fat wet dog-poo on the carpet, and your heart sinks, and the next morning when you go downstairs and the carpet is still clean and spotless, and you feel a certain elation.  

Perhaps today did not go smoothly because I didn't run.  I decided to run errands instead, which turned into a comedy of errors and took me much further than I had thought to go.   


Anyway, if I hadn't been stuck in traffic this afternoon I would not have had a precious hour poring over shelves in the bookshop I stopped at to wait for all the traffic to unjam itself.  

I would not have seen, coming around a shadowy bend on the highway, suddenly spread out before me, saffron trees bathed in late sunlight, against strata of deep blue-grey clouds tinged with a matching yellow light at their tips.  

I would not have seen, earlier, autumnal trees lining the edge of a field, one slightly smaller than the others, bright red, perfect shape, standing out, like the prettiest girl at the party.


And a mother walking along the sidewalk with some difficulty, trying to push the stroller with one hand while holding the child in the other arm, made me smile.  The little thing, all bundled up against the cold in a snowsuit, who should have been in the stroller, but who was not, obviously, having any of it!  

And after passing her, as I drove on I remembered my own babies, how Jess was happy and obliging most of the time, including sitting in a pram looking out in her quiet and observant way, but Emma, no.  I don't think I even had a pram with Emma. She was happy to sit strapped in to her own seat on the back of my bicycle, sitting there with her straight little back while I pedalled up and down hills.  I was her serf, and she, like a queen surveying her kingdom. (That's weird, but you don't have such a thing as a queendom do you?)  And with the boys, I couldn't give in to one crotchety one-year old and pick him out of the pram, because then the other would set up a rumpus and it was impossible to carry two babies and push a pram!  So sometimes I would be walking very briskly pushing the double pram carrying those two heavy boys, and also singing to them at the top of my voice to keep them happy!  And when they were still quite young, sometimes I would forsake the pram, instead carrying one in the carry-backpack thing on my back, and the other on my front, in a sling.  


And as thoughts run on, I was reminded of Tim and another feat he performed that won my amazed admiration.  When the boys were three and a half (quite large and lanky already) we went to Cape Town for a holiday and were invited down to Smitswinkel Bay, an astonishingly beautiful beach which is barely accessible, except by a very steep hike down the mountain.  At the end of the day, the boys were exhausted, and I wondered how we were to get back up to the top.  And, Tim to the rescue again, he just swung one up on each shoulder, each boy with one leg hanging down Tim's chest, the other dangling down his back, facing each other.  And then off he went, and marched right to the top of the mountain like that!  And Nicholas was so comfortable that he fell asleep with his head on top of his dad's! 


Well, one day soon there will be pictures!