Yesterday all the students at my school were very excited at the prospect of a snow day, the younger ones because they would go sledding or watch movies at home, or just "chill out", the older ones because they would be able to catch up with work. I felt so sorry for these responsible youngsters, just 16 or 17, working so hard so that they can get into the right college, have the right life. They need to play more, we all do.
Billy Collins, one of my favourite poets, has written a wonderful poem celebrating days such as these, called Snow Day.
Our driveway requires much attention on days like this, so late this afternoon we went out, even though it was still snowing lightly, Tim to snow-blow, me to shovel. Good hard work, and then I could play, but by the time it got dark I hadn't nearly finished the snow-mermaid I was fashioning on the steps, and the wind was hurtling snow down on me and her, so she is still a bit rough, but large as life, surfing a wave of snow, next to the rhododendron. While attempting to photograph the mermaid we were utterly overcome with snow from sky and trees doing its best to sand-blast us, so the photographs are very hurried and quite poor, and don't show her beautiful flicking tail either.
And here is a little baby ellie who came to visit Molly one day last winter too.
While writing this blog tonight, I had my headphones on listening to my itunes on shuffle, and suddenly a harmonica came on and with a familiar shock I knew it was my dad. Alan, my darling nephew, arranged for my father to record his harmonica-playing in a proper recording studio in 2006, a few months after my mother had died, and then gave me and my siblings a copy of the cd. He was a self-taught player of the mouth-organ, my dad, and pretty accomplished. The thing is that he talks on the recording, answers questions from the sound engineer, and tells a couple of stories as he used to do when he answered questions.
And to hear that voice again causes a small earthquake in my heart. Usually I turn it off, it is too unbearable to hear him, my 88-year old dad, the habitual voice of my childhood, hear him pronouncing Afrikaans words in that funny way, where he says the Afrikaans 'g' sound as a 'k'. All the songs were for my mother, he keeps saying, "oh, and she loved this one" and "have I played this one already?" not wanting to make a mistake, because he was slowly sinking into dementia and he knew it.
He was a big strong man, like a great old tree. And when my mother died it was as though he had been struck by lightning. His nickname for me when I was a tiny thing was "Anne-pan", and he still called me that, even when I was already 50 years old.
So I am determined to end on a positive note. Because here we are, we're alive still. We're lucky. We're warm inside with electric lights, comfortable wood-stove, food in our bellies. We have four lovely children, three of whom I spoke to today. And two dear little granddaughters. We have good jobs that we love. This is our thirtieth year together and I would still carry Tim on my back if he were injured ( I'm not sure how I would do that but it is a metaphor, I expect). And we laugh.
On Skype today, Emma was telling me and Stuart, her husband, about her outing with her two friends. They all have babies who are more or less the same age. The two little boys are not really crawling yet, while Luna has been mobile for months already, and is a very busy little girl indeed! So at the restaurant, the two little boys sat quite happily in their high chairs, shovelling bits of food contentedly into their mouths as babies like to do, while Luna tried desperately to escape from the straps holding her in, and when at last her mother took her out to put her on her lap, proceeded to throw her arms and legs about in a tantrum as she wanted to get down to explore the floor! Stuart piped up in the background, "Well, those boys are learning a valuable lesson, you should love food more than women".
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