From the clouds to the sun

We returned for 12 brief days to the cold wintry United States for medical appointments, like annual physicals, which are part of our medical insurance and therefore worth pitching up for. In total I had 6 appointments during those few days, and the last one was with the dermatologist. 

Boston skyline from Nahant

I immediately recognized the assistant who called me in, usually a dermatology student in training, who stays for the duration of the examination, observing and learning. But this was one of my ex-students, Kevin, which kind of filled me with anticipatory dread. This young man would be seeing his old Art teacher totally naked! But then I steeled myself, and thought, "Let him see this amazing old body, with all its wrinkles, scars and age spots, which has borne four babies, gone through cancer, illnesses and all, experienced LIFE!, and still holds me upright and without much pain, still functions brilliantly in every way. Here I am!" But after the prelimaries, and much smiling and remembering and catching up, he said,"Alright, Mrs Bouwer, I'm going to hand you over to someone else." Which was a relief, really. 

It was also lovely to be back and reconnect with old friends, and we have some very kind ones who offered us their generous hospitality, such warmth in the midst of all this frigidity.  

The elegant Milo, who we looked after.

My misty meadow with Molly the sweet dog.

So strange and quite difficult to land at Logan Airport and not drive home. So familiar to drive down habitual streets in our own car, but not our place anymore. Funny how we "own" places.  For 11 years I had "my" meadow, a wild piece of land behind our house, until it was sold, which broke my heart.  It was the most beautiful alive place where I knew every tree and bird, every rabbit warren and fox-den. A miraculous place where my bees lived, where I learned to run, (I had never been able to before, being a chronic asthmatic, but I ran in my meadow every day for a year and then ran a five mile race, coming dead last, but such an achievement!)  It was where I could cry about my mother's death or rage against whatever it was I was raging against at the time, or be delighted by the all the monarch chrysalises on the tall milkweed, or amazed by the intricacy of a bird's bleached skull, "where the brain had been, / that fixed the tilt of the wing"  -from a poem by Hugh MacDiarmid.  A few days before we left, I said goodbye again to "my" beach, where I walked every chance I had. 

White horses on Good Harbor Beach.

On Friday we drove to New Haven, staying one night with Matthew before beginning, on Saturday, what turned out to be an Odyssey to get to Mexico City, documented in Tim's blog http://timbouwer.com.

So lovely to see my old familiar paintings on his walls.  This one is Ida and the Daffodils, done when I was 19 years old, long long ago, and who I tried to throw away but who was rescued by Matt, because he believed the painting should stay in the family, as she has always been part of our home.  

Tim working and Matthew reading, New Haven.

Our trip from New Haven to Mexico City was fraught with difficulties, but there were some moments when I realized that I am not as brave as I thought I was.  The first came at the top of an escalator where Tim had gone down with his bags and one of the big suitcases, but I was paralyzed at the top with my backpack, my rolling-wheeled carry-on, and the other big suitcase.  I just couldn't do it, didn't believe I would keep upright, knew that the suitcases would pull me over.  Tim of course leapt up the stairs two at a time when he saw me hovering indecisively (we were late for the train) and grabbed everything, expertly maneuvering both cases down the escalator with ease.  I suddenly realized how my mother had felt, as she was terrified of escalators in her old age, would not go down them for anything.  I remember being sympathetic, but not really understanding her fear.  

Leaving Austin, Texas, on the last leg of our journey, we took off in a thunderstorm, and then hit the worst turbulence for about 25 minutes!  25 minutes is a very long time to deal with your aeroplane leaping about seemingly without much control.  It was almost like a video game, as our plane swung this way and that, banking around the massive thunderheads, trying to avoid the worst of the storm.  Even though I know that it is still pretty safe, I was so frightened that I almost lost my breath at times.  Tim sat calmly beside me and patted me patiently, put his arm around me, and said, "Even if we do crash, it will be alright to die now, won't it?  We've had brilliant lives, we're getting old, and our children will inherit some money!"  I told him to shush, that he could only say such things once we were back on terra firma!  

After the worst of the storm, levelling out.

So some things are hard, but I strive onward, challenges abound, and I continue to (try to) meet them with grace.  

Thanksgiving

London in the winter seems beset with germs.  I don't know why because the air quality is really good here, but everyone seems prone to sickness.  First the small people, and then, after looking after the small people and getting coughed on by said infected, often the bigger people too.  While plants seem to thrive in this damp climate, people are not so lucky.  Waiting in the playground at pickup time, it is easy to visualize the progressive dance of bacteria etc through the air as schoolchildren run about coughing and sneezing all over one another at regular intervals.

 

Sick granddaughter reading

Nick!

With everyone almost better, (for a brief moment) we had a Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday, November 24th, because Matthew had come all the way from America, and everyone felt like having one here!  Last year we were all together in our home in Massachusetts, our last and best Thanksgiving there.  The only one missing and missed this year was Nick, stuck at home with work deadlines.   

with my eldest and youngest children

I love this holiday, even with all the controversies surrounding its origins, because it is purely about family for us, our real family and the members we choose to be "family", our people.  There are no gift expectations, no hectic rushing about for presents, no frantic wrapping the night before, just a lovely feast, and a public declaration of no more than 5 things one is thankful for.  

with my daughters

My granddaughters and I did leaf-prints on the name-tags for each person, and also created beautiful printed papers for people to write their lists, and sometimes tomes, on.  It is interesting to hear all the things people are grateful for, especially the grandchildren, who had never experienced Thanksgiving before, being British and South African.  There were some profound gratitudes, some shy and surprisingly touching ones, and some hilarious ones, (a lot of those at our table!  I am very thankful for my childrens' senses of humour!).  

The decorators

Watching the decorators

Doing Wordle together after the feast.

And so for a small time, this lovely Thanksgiving meal, when the light inside is sweet and warm, we can eat good food cooked with love, we can drink liqueurs to warm our insides, we can tell our stories, we can listen to others' lives, we can become red-cheeked and a little tipsy, We can have intense discussions, we can look on those we love with wonder and delight.  And we can forget for a moment all the sorrows, all the worries and responsibilities, all the wrongs of the world around us. 

For we are alive!  We are together.  We hold one another in high regard.  We lean on each other, roaring with laughter or sobbing in difficult times.  

And I am thankful to be the matriarch (just like elephants) of this big, spirited, mad, laughing, intelligent, creative, bloody amazing family!

We all felt a bit like Juno after the feast!

Turning 80

 At a lunch filled with stories and hilarity on Monday at The Swan, a pub on the Thames River, in the pouring rain, which is good luck, my sister turned 80 years old.  While my sister can barely believe she has reached this grand elder age, I can also hardly believe that I have a sibling that age.  The last 80th birthday party we both attended was our mother's, in 2001.  

With our eldest daughters after the lunch.

It is quite an achievement, to get to 80.  Such a big long life.  Elder women should be revered, as they still are in a few cultures, but not in ours.  They have done amazing things, danced and loved, digested the earth of their origins, been sexual creatures, dealt with menstruation every month, grown human beings miraculously in their own bodies, birthed and nurtured them, had a career, cooked amazing food every day, gone on adventures, mended clothes, injured creatures and broken hearts, read tons of books, wept copious tears often, gone through the rack of menopause, come out stronger and changed, saying "Fuck" more often with more intent, survived betrayals, losses, the lack of money, support, built long friendships, built strong personalities, learned from their mothers and grandmothers, discerned their histories, surveyed their gardens, mountains, the ocean, humanity, with disappointment, with elation, with horror, with love, with power.  

We are bloody amazing, us elder women.  Respect us, we deserve it.  

The Venus of Laussel, a 24,000-year-old sculpture found in France.

At my father's 80th birthday celebration my siblings and I made speeches.  Mine was a poem, as it was for my mother two years later.  In his thank you speech my dad was so happy, saying, "You just said all these amazing things about me, and I'm not even dead yet!"  In my sister's speech she mentioned this and said, "Say all the good things to one another now, don't wait until the funeral!"

I wrote a poem for my sister too, but didn't get to say it in a speech, so here it is:  

For my sister on her 80th birthday.

Although she was born in the middle of the war,

It was sunny South Africa that made up her core.

Far from the fighting and struggle for power,

The little blonde girl brought joy hour after hour

To her parents, their friends, her granny and her pop, 

The only child, the princess, she thought it would never stop.

But at six she was rudely awakened from this dream,

A new baby brother, she was the cat with no cream.

And even though she begged for him to be taken back,

When they wouldn’t she decided on her own little hack,

Taking a knitting needle from her mother’s handwork bag,

She gave that little interloper a warning stab!

And as she grew, long-legged and tall,

Brenda was always the belle of the ball.

Boys were proverbial moths to her flame

And everyone wanted to make her tame.

But she was her own person, fierce and wild,

And no one was able to make her mild.

As a child Brenda would faint at the sight of blood,

But became a nurse to staunch all that flood.

Many qualifications later, a paediatric sister

Whom everyone called on, instead of a mister.

For calmness and authority, there was no one better,

She thinks outside the box, doesn’t follow the letter.  

In quick succession, a family of four,

A beautiful girl, then three handsome boys she bore.

She worked long and hard in order to raise them,

Wonderful children, branches from her stem

of the family tree, of which I’m a part, 

Her little sister, also a part of her heart.  

I can’t quite believe I’ve a sister who’s now an elder

We’ve lived far apart so our togethers have been seldom

But I’ve looked up to her the whole of my life,

We’ve even come under the same kind of knife.

Two white-haired old ladies, we’re wise and we’re strong,

We love and stand up for each other, we’ve always got along.

So, beautiful sister, I wish you the best

A new era of life, one filled with zest

As you get to explore the world from your new place,

With your curious mind which always runs on apace.

May you be comfortable, warm, happy and light,

With the mountain behind you, and the ocean bright

Nomads 2022

 Our nomadic life so far: two weeks in Potries, Spain. 5 days in Valencia, Spain, one week in West Molesey, England.  

A sudden hiatus in a Holiday Inn in Shepperton, to protect our family members from our positive Covid virus diagnoses, Tim last Tuesday and me on Friday morning.  I was devastated to get Covid, it has been a great fear of mine for the past three years, but the variant I think we have, the new Omicron B Q1.1, attacks the upper respiratory system, not the lower, so although we are both coughing our lungs out at various times, I can still breathe, and so can Tim.  (In honour of Tim losing his sense of taste and smell, however, all the photos are in black and white.)  

We have been going for long walks, believers in making lungs work hard to get them strong and help them fight such things as mean and nasty viruses.  Tim keeps thinking he is taking me on forced marches, but we stop at benches and sit calmly with friendly ghosts.

I wonder if Reginald Arther Mears minds sharing his bench with Jean and Jack Beresford?

A beautiful green space attracted us in between main roads, as there seem to be all over the place in England, the greenest of islands. Every possible surface: stone, wall or pavement is lushly mossy, grassy, ivy-covered, because of all the watery versions of weather here every day - drizzle, fog, showers, storms, mist, rain rain rain!  (This photo looks very metaphorical.  I see metaphors everywhere now.)

Taking candid photos of a swan

Tim looks as though he is contemplating the river here, where we had stopped for a welcome lean on the bridge wall, but in actual fact, because it is a "live" photo, I know he is saying, "Do you want to carry on walking?"

Beauteous trees along the way

Some encountered signs: A very unfriendly one which stopped us, although we both thought later that we should have just walked on through!  (I wonder what the special connection is between this gate and Good Friday?  I also hate elitist signs like this, believing most places like rivers and hills and beaches should be public spaces, just like the people of the Kinder Mass Trespass in 1932, when 600 ordinary men and women took to the moorland of Kinder Scout in the Peak District in England to protest about restrictions on walking in the countryside, which led eventually to the establishment of all the national parks of England.  

And if you look carefully, someone with a subversive soul like mine, has written, GO SWIMMING, on this sign.  

We walked three miles or more today along the lovely and ancient Thames, bloody champions we are!  There was an old English Pointer with a sweet trotting gait who flooded my heart with memories of my beloved dog Sasha because he had the same head as she did, and a pair of blue tits brought my dear cheerful blizzard-defying Massachusetts chickadees to mind, so that my eyes were suddenly weeping, and Tim hugged me and then we said, "Well, fuck this!" like Bill Bryson does after feeling sad in an old graveyard in Vermont that he describes so perfectly in "The Lost Continent".  And walked on.  

And even though we have Covid, we are still happy, even living in a small hotel room, cramped up together, coughing, feverish, slightly miserable, we still are laughing, finding the sun even in these grey and cloudy skies.  We have daughters who bring us lovely packages of food and treats, sons who call and text every day to check in on us.  Lucky nomads.

Blessed.