Day 59

Our family on George's Island, 16 June 2001

Today is 9 years since we arrived in America.  This was our first outing as a whole family on Jessica's 19th birthday, to the Boston Harbor Islands.  Emma had come to visit and Jess was about to leave for England for the last 6 months of her gap-year before beginning her studies at Rhodes University in 2002.  The boys would soon be 9 years old.  The photograph (the first of all 6 of us in America) was taken by another immigrant, a little old Chinese man with soft wrinkled cheeks and a shy smile.

Everything was new and foreign then and many things still are.  Amazing how years just flap off into the distant past so swiftly, like geese vanishing into the dark horizon.

I do love my new home, but still miss the land of my heart, the country of my soul.

I wish my daughters could be part of our lives in America, that is the very hardest part of living here.  I miss my friends with the same societal history, the same understanding of our shared difficult past in apartheid South Africa.  I miss our beautiful old stone home of many-coloured rooms and a blue swimming pool and an avocado tree at 16 Cross Street in Grahamstown, where friends were always just a walk around the corner, and you didn't have to make an appointment.  I miss my family, although only my sister is left in Cape Town now, as both my parents have died.  I miss the beautiful warm Indian Ocean with its constant waves. I miss the sunny weather and the light.

Today our oldest American friends came for lunch, and afterwards we went for a walk through my 'territory', I made them bundu-bash (pushing through thorny branches and clambering over stone walls at times, stepping over (and through) running streams), and showed them all the wonderful sights to be seen every day, as the seasons change, as the sap runs or thickens, as the meadow bursts into exuberant life and again is shrouded in a snowy-white blanket.

Last year in August we had a party to celebrate Tim's 50 years.  It was a wonderful celebration, with all four children making funny, touching speeches about what a good dad he has been, and with lovely messages sent from friends in South Africa and England.  For some weird reason all the photographs taken on that day have vanished into the ether, and this is the only one which remains of the six of us, taken by someone with Emma's camera.  That was the last time we were all together.  Tim looks a bit shell-shocked from all the attention!  This is the most recent picture of the 6 of us in America.

Day 58

Sky Beach

Snow was falling softly when I woke up this morning but not enough to present a problem with the driveway, just enough to be pretty.  Big fat flakes falling languidly down from the sky.  Another form of water, the amazing element!

I went to the beach with Tim and Molly this morning and Tim took long-exposure pictures of the beautiful tumultuous waves while Molly and I ran to the end of the beach and back again.  I think it is about 1.5km.

The ancient philosopher Empedocles was right when he named water as the most important of the four elements into which he categorised everything on earth.  Even if it is technically speaking H2O.

Water is magical.  It is a major part of ritual in most religions on earth.  Water can do just about anything: carve, cleanse, rush, meander, bubble, babble, destroy, delight, purify, wash, be gentle rain, be cruel torrent, be hard or soft, be salty or fresh, hold life, give life, take away life.  We are all made mostly of water.  Would that we could all flow together in the same direction more often. 

Day 57

A large maple ripped out of the ground last night.

Rain Rain Rain! - Wind, Hurricane-force Wind!  Soft soggy ground!  Great trees falling down! 

Sitting watching the Olympics last night with Nick, the wind literally howling outside, rain beating at the windows, we heard the huge crack of a tree breaking and falling just outside!  Nick decided to sleep on Matthew's spare bed because his bed is located right underneath two trees which looks like friends leaning up against one another.  After everyone else had gone to bed, I heard another two in quick succession, leaping up in fear at each one.  This morning all the schools were cancelled because of extensive damage in both towns, and everywhere are fallen trees.  There were 3 huge pines and one maple which fell on our property, all close to one another, like a chain reaction, almost.  So sad to see beautiful old trees completely snapped off, or uprooted.

So today there was no internet, cable, or phone for the whole day.  Amazing how often I go to the internet to look up something, as I missed it today every time I wanted to do this.  I am going to try to curb this desire.

I ran almost 2km today with Molly, happy to see all the birds, the male cardinal singing his courting song, sounding just like my dad whistling!  And all the birds telling how they survived the night, the storm, relating the story over and over again in many-throated song, the little nuthatches with their repetitive soft beeps, swooping down on to the feeder, then lilting up into the tree to feast on the sunflower seed, then diving down so gracefully once more, alert, alive.

I saw an interesting movie today, a little British film called An Education, based on a memoir by Lynn Barber who, as a 17-year old in 1960, had an affair with a married conman.  Tim hated it but I thought it was brilliant.  The school scenes were so reminiscent of my schooldays in Cape Town. Our school, Rustenburg, was a clone of the British system, uniforms, silly rules and rigorous academics.  As a 17-year old I had to stand up when everyone else sat down in assembly, for an entire week, with my hat on, because the principal had caught me with it hanging down my back from the elastic around my throat.  Such a bizarre punishment for such a ridiculous transgression.

A braided frame of wood tonight - collage of photos.  I am so tired and have to get up early to take the boys to work!

Day 56

Misty Moisty Morning.
39F - Rain, Rain, Rain!  2.09km today, with Molly following, because her leg is so much better.  She ran with her little round yellow god in her mouth, but I refused to throw it for her.  Her girth has widened in the few days she has not been running, and her soul has struggled, poor thing.  It was strange to hear her panting along behind me, running in her little hopeful circles again.  She lay about and slept all day after that.

While I was folding all the clean laundry I was intrigued to hear a radio programme about sex addiction.  There were two guests on the show, a woman, a professor of sociology who has become somewhat of an "expert" in America on man/woman relationships, sexual mores, etc.  and a man, a psychologist who has been treating people with sex addiction for 20 years.  She does not really believe that it is an addiction, while of course he does (he's been treating "addicts" for years). 

It seems to me to be an excuse, very typical of American society, where someone, or something, must always be blamed, hence the abnormally high litigation in this country.  So, you (say, Tiger Woods)  have behaved very badly, done something (several things) that are socially unacceptable.  But oh, after all, it is not really your fault, it is a disease, and with a lot of money you can go into rehab and be cured. 

Why doesn't he just grow up, consider someone other than himself, and learn to zip up his pants? One commentator described Tiger Woods as "a man who lets his genitals drag him along the trail of life", which I rather enjoyed.

The wind picked up this afternoon and evening, so more arguing with umbrellas today!

Day 55

Day 55 of the year I will turn 55. 
Wind and sand at the beach.

I ran 3.25km today, on a rainy stormy day, temps (38 - 40F)  although the rain let up a bit while I was running, which was very kind of it.  Our family was very happy because even though it is still raining now, late at night, and has been all day, at least it is rain, not snow filling up our steep driveway, making so much hard manual labour for us all!  Further west, where our friends Karen and Dave live, they have had 6 inches or more of snow already today!

Rain all day means a lot of fiddling with umbrellas, trying to get them to open, a sudden gust of wind blowing them inside out - ping!  Gauging the direction of the wind so that you can push the umbrella into it,  hoping the umbrella will oblige and blow back the right way again - bing!  Trying to close the umbrella, which, even though it is a little one, has a hefty stubborn streak! And all this time, getting wetter than you probably would have done without an umbrella. 

Driving down the highway I always love to see the pigeons which live under each bridge. They often sit on the wires which run the length of the bridges, looking like like so many melodic notes on the staff of a musical notation. Today they were all sitting there quietly, even in the rain.  Perhaps pigeons get cabin fever too.  Or they were sick of their children and went to sit at the adults only area.

I met Angelina Hall this afternoon, the new little daughter of our friends.  (You can see Tim's beautiful pictures of her on his Flickr site http://www.flickr.com/photos/bowtoo).  Such a dear little person.  Babies are really tiny creatures,you forget how fragile and delicate human beings are when we embark on our journey of life.  I got to hold her for almost the whole visit, and fell instantly in love, as she gazed at me in that innocent, wise way babies sometimes have.  Earlier, I had immense difficulty choosing the things for her presents, I could have bought the whole baby section of the store!  I did buy her her very first tutu, a little pink swimsuit for a 9 month old, the cutest thing!  My big son Nick (who was once smaller than she is) also held Angelina with his long-fingered hands and long-boned arms, with great care and fascination.

This is my long henna-red hair that I love.  When I was little the doctors thought that long hair might hold dust which would increase asthma, so I always had to have short short (ugly) hair, whereas my best friend Trish had long dark wavy hair, which she could wear in a pony-tail or plaits or any different way, and of which I was very jealous.  So since I became a teenager I have had long hair, only a few times in my life have I cut it short short again, but I always regret it. 

Day 54

Tree and sky on the way to school this morning. 

I went out to lunch with my friend Mary in Davis Square in Cambridge, to Diva, a wonderful Indian restaurant.  We talked about sad and happy things, ate delicious food, drank iced water and hot tea, laughed and smiled and were serious.  She is my oldest American friend.  I met her the first summer we spent here, when we were lost lambs in a foreign land.  The map in my head has a road which goes straight to her house. She is very dear to my heart.
 The air was cold and nippy through our coats.  It felt as though snow was imminent all day, but there were only a few large drops of rain at about 11 this morning.  Looking out of the windows at Starbucks, where we went for coffee, I was bombarded by the number of people, people walking the street, standing in alleyways, crowds in the coffeeshop, in cars, people spilling out everywhere.  I felt so lucky to live in a less crowded town, where there are only 3000 people, where you can see the sky and trees wherever you look, where you are close to the sea with its deserted winter beaches, where you can smell the weather.

I am too tired to draw tonight, and Tim pointed out that I am not cheating when I use a photograph, as my resolution was to "produce" a self-portrait every day.  So (unapologetically) here I am with Jess, this time last year, the mist above her head is her warm breath in the cold air.  My darling daughters, both so far away.  At least technology allows us to communicate relatively easily.  In my grandpa's diary of 1917, he speaks of going down to the docks in Cape Town to meet the mail-ship from England, which probably arrived every three or four weeks, to see if there were any letters from my future grandmother, then his betrothed, so desperate was he for news of her.

Day 53

Morning shadows - the way through the woods.  Lovely day today, and we all had to go to school and work, how come Mondays are often so beautiful?

I did the Fundred Project http://www.fundred.org/ with my classes, some were completely into the social activism, performance art side of the story and did beautiful $100 bills, but my difficult 8th graders were noisy and uncooperative and I was quite pissed off with them today.  I actually gave up on their clamour and went to sit down at my computer with my back to them, read an entire Mail & Guardian op ed piece plus all the comments, while they sat in shocked silence waiting for me to come to my senses.  Eventually I heard the entire class say, in unison, "We're sorry, Madame Bouwer!", which brought a smile to my heart, although my lips did not outwardly show one.   Later I saw a piece of paper lying on one of the tables, on which the most responsible girl had written, 'All together, say "We're sorry, Mme Bouwer!"'

Self-portrait with alphabet heart - collage/drawing.   I suppose it says something about what these things mean to me: Art, Reading, Education and north america.

Day 52

Ice dolphin.   

Beautiful warmish day, 38F, although it was snowing when I woke up, or maybe it was a dream. 

The warmth brought out all the singing robins today!  So many birds! I saw chickadees, nuthatches, and several dear little downy woodpeckers, almost tripped over my own feet peering into the trees on the side of the meadow.   A large group of fat robins searched about for worms in the newly soft places on the track.  They ran along in front of me until I got too close and then took off into the trees.  Each time I came back into the meadow from the woods, they were back and repeated the performance, to my delight! 

It feels like spring, as there are patches of muddy mushy ground, where your heels sink in, but then still scary patches of ice to be avoided.  But I won't get my hopes up, because there is certain to be more snow.  It is only mid-February, after all.   I ran 3.78km today, it felt good.  Part of it is unconscious now, where thoughts just float about as my legs do their job, and my arms swing me along.  But when I get tired, I become aware that the running has become a struggle, and so I count my breathing, in 1 - 2, out 3 - 4 - 5, in 1 - 2, out 3 - 4 - 5 ....  (This year is full of fives for me!)  And the act of counting breathing seems to let me go on for a lot longer.

Today's portrait - handprints in the snow, looking like some large exotic bird's footprints.  My big hands, like my dad's, very capable, making good things. 

Day 51

45F today, although there was a very very freezing cold wind on the beach!  I ran a bit on the beach, but there were corrugations which proved difficult, and further up the shoreline the sand was soft and impossible.  But Tim and I walked a couple of miles, looking for horses galloping for him to photograph.  There were plenty of horses but none that galloped.  These ones reminded me of dancers in a chorus-line, perfectly synchronised.

But all my bees were out today, flying about like crazy happy buzzers!  I am glad to see them all healthy, hope they continue that way until spring!

We live in a beautiful part of Massachusetts, lots of farmland and woods, cows and horses and trees, and wild animals - coyotes, fishers, foxes, beavers.  Every day I see birds of prey, and I saw 9 turkey buzzards on Friday afternoon, riding the thermals together, imposing and magnificent.  Three deer walked through our back yard yesterday, you can see one on Tim's flickr stream http://www.flickr.com/photos/bowtoo.  He also has a wonderful picture of the dear little rust-coloured screech owl that we saw today sunning itself, well, just its head peeping out of its nest-hole, the sweetest thing! 

So here is a photograph of trees painted with snow that I took the other day, and there is me in the corner, sitting on a large lump of snow, contemplating the cold beauty.  I love this landscape every day.  I am transplanted, and growing roots.

Day 50

Molly and the baby elephant. 

Molly is going quietly crazy not being able to run, poor thing, but her leg is healing nicely, just a few more days and she can run behind me again.  It was pretty again today, blue and white sky, 38F, but with a chilly breeze.  I ran 3.2km with an easy stride. 

You can go along in your daily life feeling passably good, running comfortably around a meadow behind your house, when suddenly, thoughts of the actual physical distance between you and your daughters singes your mind, such pain that your eyes sting and weep. 

I hope I am not much much older before they live around the corner and we can meet for tea and I can feel their soft cheeks against my own as we hug and laugh.

I have just read a brilliant and beautifully written book, How to Paint a Dead Man, about art and existence and the messiness of Life and Death. 

When Matthew and Nick were 11 we went to a little circus, well, Tim took them actually, because I gave up circuses when Jess and Emma were little girls after I took them and cried for the sad lions and tamed tigers and elephants made to do stupid tricks.  But I had the car, so I waited with Tim and the boys in the queue to see if they managed to buy tickets in case I had to take them home again. 

A little Indian elephant was taking people on rides around the grassy, tree-lined park and Matthew decided to spend his $5 which he had been given for refreshments, on an elephant ride instead.  He waited in line for a long time, letting several people go before him.  He told me later that he had calculated where to stand so that he would get to sit right up front at her head.  The elephant's name was Tina and she was 35 years old.  I watched him sit in rapt wonder atop her head, stroking her bumpy skull and talking quietly to her for the duration of the ride.  After his ride he was wide-eyed and happy, and, Tim and Nick still waiting in line for tickets, Matthew went back to stand at the rope which marked the looping shape where the little elephant walked dreamily, unconsciously carrying each new burden of people back and forth, back and forth.  As she came past Matthew, I saw her abruptly come awake, stop and look at him, then she carefully investigated him all over with her delicate prehensile trunk, letting it drape over his head for a few seconds, before moving on at her handler's behest.  He was elated! She knew him! She remembered him because he had taken the trouble to appreciate her and stroke her gently and talk softly to her.  My son had experienced that rare connection between human and (large, semi-wild) animal, fellow creatures communicating, a specific kind of empathy.

So this is an image I did of the Tree of Life, it is a kind of etching.

Day 49

I saw this Cloud Dragon flying above me in the meadow with the sun shining warmly.  41F (5C) today, so everything becoming slush, which means hard-going for a runner. 

It is amazing how symmetrically we are designed.  I tried running with my right arm in unison with my right leg, left arm with left leg, and it is almost impossible, you just about fall over, and your arms return naturally to the opposite side from your leg, which is the most economical way to run, I suppose, all limbs swinging away in a balanced fashion to keep you upright and going in a relatively straight line.

Well, I'm cheating again today, no drawing or painting, but I loved this photograph when I saw how it had turned out, so I am using it.  

I was sitting on a rock in the meadow thinking how awful some people are.  Earlier, looking at beautiful pictures of the Hebrides in a National Geographic, I turned the page to horrific images of animals being sold in a Jakarta market, owls, toucans, iguanas, monkeys and other illegally traded, often endangered animals.  I wish ill on these people, I want them to experience an excruciating death.  I feel such anguish just seeing a racoon dead on the side of the road.  It is incomprehensible to me how people can be like this, the cruelty of human beings.  The indescribably stupidity of mankind.  I wish I was so rich that I could travel there and buy up all the animals, and set them free in a safe perfect place.

Nick is reading Moby Dick, the famous classic, an American allegory about an idiotic man searching for a white whale and looking for revenge.  A much better book, in my opinion, is "Ahab's Wife" by Sena Naslund.  But that is beside the point, which is to do with man's inhumanity to animals, sentient beings like ourselves.  I was so happy to find out that whales actually did attack boats and kill people, one entire whaling ship, the Essex, was holed and sunk in the 1800's.   When people first encountered polar bears, when the first ship got to the Arctic Circle, the men on board just shot them, about 500 of them!  What is wrong with us?  We are capable of such heights but such terrible depths, and today was a murky day for my soul.

Day 48

29F when I went out this morning, took Molly for a little walk and then brought her home again because of her leg, which seems much better today!  Then left her staring at me through the glass door, very confused and indignant, and went back and ran 2.09km.  I had almost forgotten how arduous it is, running in thick snow, but it was also lovely, sunny, beautiful.  Spangled, snow-covered branches, blue blue sky.  I took many photographs and love this one in particular, although it was an effort to choose only one.  I call this one 'Tracery'.

While I was in the meadow, the mother of one of my ex-students called my cell-phone (which is there in case I fall and break something) to tell me about the Fundred project www.fundred.org, to make 300 000 000 hand-drawn hundred-dollar bills to take to Washington and request an exhange for real money, a grant which will be used to eliminate lead from polluted soil in US cities, starting with New Orleans.  Such an admirable and positive project.   I am going to do it with all my students.  It is a great example of compassion and creativity doing good in the world.

So my self-portrait is a watercolour in the snowy meadow today, with snow decorating my hair from running through the woods, where, every now and then, unexpectedly, a white cold dollop of snow slips off its branch above, and plops down on to your unsuspecting head, shoulders, or tender back of the neck.

Day 47

Well, I think today's snowstorm incorporated all the different Inuit words for snow - there was softly falling snow, little round bullets of snow, wet sleety snow, fat sticky flakes of snow, snow blasting down, floating down, drifting up again!  It was snowing so fast that when Nick, his friend and I cleared the driveway so that I could fetch Matthew for work and take them all to the Y, by the time we got to the bottom the top was snowed over again!  Like Albert's Bridge!  

I didn't run today because Molly's left front leg is still a bit stiff and sore from our run on the beach, I think, and I didn't want her making it worse.  I hauled wood and gathered pine-cones and kindling like a good pioneer woman, and then shovelled a great deal, so I had my exercise anyway.

When I went to fetch the boys 3 hours later, a trip which usually takes 20 minutes, took an hour, although I did take their friend back to his home in Manchester as well (today's kindness).  The roads were thickly coated with snow, snow flying at your windscreen so that you can imagine you're going at Star Trek's warpspeed even though you're moving at about 20 miles an hour. 

When we came to our driveway, into which one has to take a flying leap in first gear, over the snow-plough bank, then a twist of the steering wheel to get up the hill, I found myself instead skidding to the right side, then the left, narrowly missed hitting a tree, and in a kind of crab-like move, my car slid itself perfectly into the first parking spot! Our driveway always makes for an exciting adrenaline-rush arrival home in snowy winter!

So this is a self-portrait as a six-sided (which is how many sides every snowflake has) snowflake, in honour of the snowstorm today.  I learnt how to make these a few years ago, in order to teach my students how to make "winter vacation" cards, because it is not PC here to say Christmas cards, so I had to think of something not exactly to do with Christmas.

Day 46

I have decided to add something kind each day to my resolutions as well.  We are not compassionate enough in our lives, I think, and little kindnesses can change someone's day.  I believe that compassion should be taught in schools, as a subject, like mathematics, or french.  The world would be a better place with more empathy. 

I will only write about it occasionally, because that is blowing your own trumpet and kind of negates the generosity, but I am going to try to do at least one kind and gracious act every day.

I roamed 'my' territory (3 meadows and some woods) before I ran today.  Then ran perhaps a little further than yesterday although I  forgot my pedometer so don't know exactly how far, but probably 3.6 km.  I think I pulled something though, because for a couple of hours I had a stiff time getting up and limped along like my dad once I was up.  But, after helping Tim get sand to fill up the barrels all the way along our steep driveway for the anticipated snowstorm tomorrow, the pain suddenly slipped out of my body, everything worked properly again.

The portrait was not done today, but borrowed from a quilt I made for my parents' 55th anniversary, which was on 7th March 1997.  They were married for almost 64 years, as my mother died in January 2006.  They had 3 children, and under the applique portraits of my mum and dad, I embroidered a portrait of each family, a sort of upside-down family tree.  The boys were little then, Emma and Jess teenagers in the background, and Tim looking as though he is going bald!  The wall-hanging hung proudly in their little house in Cape Town until my dad died, when I brought it here to my house in Massachusetts.

Day 45

33F today, pretty skies all day.  I ran 3.2km today, quite easily.  I met Kitty walking in the meadow, a neighbour who lost her husband about a year ago, shame.  She has an air of sadness about her now.  She has two exquisite Irish setters, and she takes in rescued cats, has 6 cats at the moment.  She looks as though she has Swedish ancestry, very fair, even though she is in her 60's, I think. 

Tim and I went for a walk at Ocean Lawn, this is Tim leaping in the wide open space, we saw only 2 other couples who hurried away, the wind was bitter but Tim took some gorgeous photographs.  The rocks there are low granite cliffs falling to the sea and the light played on them as the clouds drifted by. 

Tim has always made me laugh and we had a happy Valentine's Day, so I'm not quite sure why I did a pensive portrait, but there you are.  This is me looking out of the window, probably seeing more snow coming!  I like the hand here, it reminds me of my dad's huge hands, great big sausage-fingers, he had. 

I have been watching the pair figure-skating at the
Winter Olympics tonight and marvel at the grace of some of the skaters.  Imagine having such amazing co-ordination and agility.  I climbed a small tree today, remembering how much I loved climbing as a child, and was fearless then, climbing high and scaring my mother.  Today I climbed awkwardly up, sat in the tree for a while, then swung down like a monkey, which felt quite good, but there was nothing graceful about the entire experience, except maybe the sitting part, it was all touch-and-go the whole way!

Day 44

If I had to use my hands to tell how old I will be this year, I would have to hold up all my fingers 5 times, and then one hand. It was 28F today and I ran 2.43km, not too far because Molly is limping a little, getting old.  (She is nearly 2 hands old.)

I took this picture of Tim and a nuthatch at the Ipswich Wildlife reserve, where there are little birds who will come and eat from your hand at certain places in the forest.  They are chickadees, tufted titmouses and nuthatches, but my favourite are the little nuthatches, because they have very determined diminutive faces and they beep softly to themselves and each other almost constantly, even when they are on your hand.  Feeling that delicate momentary weight, the slight claws perching, the sweet little voice, makes you smile inside and out.

This is the man I have loved for more than 25 years now, and it is Valentine's Day tomorrow, so my self-portrait is the card I made for that, as we don't believe in buying cards, you have to make one and write a poem inside.

So here is a poem that I wrote a long time ago for Tim:

You enter my pathways,
Opening doors, letting light.
Green eyes grow leaves.

Sunlight warms my stones.
Your questions are bright birds
Which fly from dark cages.

And I will answer you,
My lover, brother, friend
How I am twined around your hair like grass.

I will listen to your ears.
I want to find the bones
I see in the shadow of your fingers.

Here is a map of my body.
My blood is yours,
For years of moments

Day 43

My gorgeous boys and girls last summer.  I wish we were all together tonight. 

I couldn't run today because it was parent-teacher conference day at school, so I had to leave home early as my first parent arrived at 8.05am.  It is really a pleasant day though because most of the parents who come are the ones who love art and whose children love art, so it is rather an ego-stroking fest, with the parents saying nice things about me and me saying nice things about their children.  I felt so sad for one parent whose daughter I have taught for 5 years. She is Haitian and lost her brother in the earthquake, exactly a month ago.  She said it took only 42 seconds for the quake to destroy more than 200 000 people.  It is virtually incomprehensible.

I drew a self-portrait like this when the boys were very little, it was on a day when everyone had been very needy and I felt overwhelmed!  Holding a boy in each arm, Jess standing on my feet, and Emma sitting on my head!  And now they are all grown-up!  And I am grown older, and we don't live in 16 Cross Street anymore.                                                        A little boy came into the art room when I was sitting there alone after lunch.  He didn't see me as he looked around and said aloud, "Cool!".  So I rolled backwards on my wheeled office chair and said "Hello".  He smiled at me so I asked him his name.  He peered at me carefully and then ran over to me and gave me a big hug!  He said, "My name is William and I'm 5 years old."  Funny how little children always show the number of fingers they are, but not really after they are 5.    I asked him if he wanted to draw and he loved my huge box of markers, 100 different colours!  He drew there quietly for a while until his mother, the school receptionist, came to find him.  

Such a dear little boy who warmed my heart, such an open and innocent soul.

Day 42

I have been wondering if all this blogging stuff is too self-indulgent.  Making a self-portrait every day, why?  Looking so carefully at myself every single day for a year?  Well, perhaps it furthers self-knowledge.  It is surely always good to observe and reflect, to know yourself better.  We are each, after all is said and done, all alone in our heads, no matter how much love we give and how much surrounds us.  And also my aim is to grow old as gracefully as possible, even though some days it is really difficult.  It is indeed a pity that we often do not admire and enjoy our young bodies.  Instead we are constantly worrying, "my nose is too big, my breasts are too small, my thighs are too fat", etc.  I sometimes want to tell my students that they are exquisite, that they should be aware of how lucky they are, how gorgeous, how alive, and that all they should do is LIVE.  

I think the trick to life is to find delight in the mundane.  Drawing helps you do that too, because no matter what you observe, a vase of flowers, a computer monitor, a tree, a pile of books and papers, even this aging face of mine, as you begin to draw, to scrutinize and contemplate the chiara and the scura, the light and the dark, the way shadow and luminosity juxtapose, the subject becomes beautiful. 

Molly and I ran 1.71 km today on Singing beach, it was cut short because as I stopped at the end to take a photograph, my thick ski-glove slipped out from where it was tucked under my arm, as a large wave surged on to the shore, and my reflexes told me to pick up the glove, but the wave was too fast and drenched the glove, my bare hand, and my shoes and socks!  It was VERY cold water, and I quickly ran back in a panic to the car, terrified of dying of cold, (yes, I know that is pathetic) or getting frostbite, or something.  My left hand was completely numb by the time I got back, but it quickly came to life again.  I have a dread of THE COLD, it is, for me, as horrifying as THE NOTHING in 'Never-ending Story'.

Day 41

Such a strange snow day with no snow!  The meteorologists were entirely wrong this time!  The wind is raging outside though tonight, and it is very cold now, and a dusting of snow on the ground.  Molly and I ran 2.8km today, and it would be nice to lope along in as carefree a manner as Molly does.  Ten years ago in South Africa I would never have imagined that I would be running with soft snow falling on my bare arms in America, a  crazy black dog following at my heels!

I watched an HBO movie on Winston Churchill this evening while I was washing up.  It made me ponder war.  I was born ten years after the second world war ended, but it was of course the defining experience for my parents' generation.  My dad was an officer in the British Airforce.  My mother was a WAF (women's auxiliary forces) in South Africa and they met while she was handing out uniforms to the new British troops who had just arrived in Cape Town.  The British troops had been on their way to Singapore, but their ship was torpedoed and they had to stop in at Cape Town Harbour instead. 

I grew up hearing Churchill's speeches, how he was a hero, Britain's saviour.  He was a truly brilliant orator, and he actually received the Nobel prize for Literature! In this movie they portray Clementine, his wife, as an intelligent woman who knew him well.  She once said, "I think Winston has played war games all his life, and now this one is real."   

So this is a picture of my mother during the war, before she had any children, before she was even married, I think.  Young and full of unlimited potential, and now her whole life has gone by and she is dead.  So brief, this life.  My sister often says that I am the spitting image of my mother, (she knew her for a lot longer than I did) and when I was younger I sometimes had people who had known her as a child or young woman come up to me on the street and say, "You must be Joan Webster's daughter!" without my mother even having been present!  

Day 40

Tonight I am missing my daughters who live so far away, too far.  They are both going through challenging times in their lives and it would be lovely to sit down and have a calming cup of tea with each of them. 

I remember having these two beautiful, dainty little daughters, long blonde plaits on heads brimming with imagination.  I had a friend who had two sons about the same age, and I thought she was not such great shakes as a mother because her house was always a wild rumpus of noise and mess, with broken branches in the garden and something likely to fall on your head if you ventured further than the front door.  And then I had my own boys and suddenly understood everything.

This is a little screech owl Tim and I saw at Hampton Beach.  Tim took some beautiful pictures of it which can be seen at his Flickr stream. 

I am cheating again because I am so tired.  We are expecting 8 - 12 inches of snow tomorrow, so I guess I will be extremely tired tomorrow night too, from all that shovelling! 

I did this watercolour last year from a very old pencil self-portrait of myself, so here I am young and beautiful, as one always is in paintings, with the lips of Angelina Jolie (?) with an owl on my head. 

When I was younger I was fascinated by owls, and made many ceramic owls, big and small, some of which rest in people's houses in Grahamstown and East London, and some of which have finally found their way to America and live on my mantelpiece and remind me of Emma, who as a small girl had a flock of them with which she would sleep, along with her teddy bear made by Granny.  Halfway through the night she would come into my bed, first plopping in her little family of 7 or 8 cold hard ceramic owls which poked me intermittently all through my restless sleep, while she lay snuggled against my other side with the teddy.

Day 39

It reached 31F today, just below freezing, the sun felt lovely on my face when I took Molly to the meadow before school. 

What a tiring day, the 8th graders were quite dilly today for some reason, they were almost bouncing off the walls in their exuberance!  My 6th and 7th grade students are better behaved than these classes!  I really enjoy their energy and they are quite productive, but quite a handful some days.  I am exhausted tonight after leaving home at 9am this morning, and only arriving home at 9.30pm from an ECBA Board of Directors' (beekeepers association).

These cairns have been lovingly made on a vague wall of rocks which forms a barrier between the sea and the road.  I love such intimations of creativity, they are always pleasantly surprising and unexpected.  Cairns are found all over the world, in many different cultures, often added to by other people, especially on mountains.  They signify respect for something, sometimes the dead, sometimes they signify a pathway, or the tallest point.  The German and Dutch words for cairn literally mean 'stone man', so my self-portrait today is as a cairn, although it looks a bit like Mrs Potato-lady.. 

Day 38

19F (-7C) with wind-chill again!  Little old Lily-cat loves being stroked, but will not be picked up (because she is 20 years old and arthritic), nor will she put her whole self on your lap, just the front legs (she likes to keep at least half her body independent).  We cut her nails today and she still will not have anything to do with Tim (Tim did the cutting, I did the holding tightly).

We spent the whole day at Salem State College Swimming Centre, where the boys swam in the Cape Ann district championships, with 8 schools participating.  They both swam really well, no medals, but placed in the top 7 in backstroke (Matt), butterfly and IM (Nick).  Amazing how you become one of those weird loud-shouting parents, all excited in the spectator gallery, willing your child on, as if it helps in any way.

So, by the time we got home and ate a very belated lunch, it was almost nightfall.  I ran to the meadow in the twilight and by the time I had finished 5 ups and downs of Heartbreak Hill it was almost pitch dark.  Molly still asked me to throw the ball, even though she couldn't see it!  Walking home through the dim forest I would have been lost if not for knowing the place so well, the way the path winds through the trees, and where there are still patches of ice which must be avoided, the location of thorn bushes out to get you, and protruding branches to elude.

Running in the dark you seem to go much faster than in daylight. I was speeding through the night with ease, my legs like pistons, my mind as clear as the sky. 

Day 37

22F (-5C) with wind-chill factor much lower, I think.  Molly and I went to the beach, where we were met with moody skies, snow-flurries, a tide way out, and  lovely hard sand on which to run!  I discovered how wonderful it is to run on a flat surface, rather than an uneven meadow!  "Beach" is Molly's second favourite word, after "walk", although it probably ties with "treat".

The ocean - it is where we go to rejuvenate.  I am always happier after I have been at the sea, lighter.  As e.e.cummings wrote, "For whatever we lose, like a you or a me, it's always ourselves we find in the sea."

I bought some daffodil buds on Friday and they are all blossoming out, like little shards of sunlight shining on my old oak table.  They were my mother's favourite flower, I think.  My grandmother, who was very petite, and from whom I inherited my artistic abilities, loved nasturtiums.  So as a child I chose daffodils and nasturtiums as my favourite flowers, and they still are.

Day 36

31F (-0.5C) A beautiful blue sky with small white scudding clouds today.  My legs were still aching a bit, so I gave them a little break, and only ran up and down Heartbreak Hill twice, then walked all through the icy meadows with the long-legged black dog.  There were some tracks in the shaded spots where the thin dusting of snow remained, but it was hard to see many.  I am looking for bobcat tracks, I would love to know if there are bobcats around here.  They were exterminated in Massachusetts in the 1800's but made a slow comeback when farmers left farms and the land reverted to forest. Apparently they are very shy, elusive creatures, about twice the size of a domestic cat, although that's probably 3 times our Lily, who is a very petite and very old cat.  

These are my lovely winter boots that my friend Markie got for me, warming up in front of the woodstove, waiting for when I have to fetch the boys in a little while.  They are made of real Australian sheepskin and wool, so that you don't have to wear socks, just slip your feet into the warm depths and you're all set, as they say in New England.   I live in them in the winter, whenever my feet are cold.  They are perfect for someone who hates wearing shoes at all!

Yes, I feel a little guilty for wearing real leather, after complaining about hunters, but the pseudo stuff makes your feet smell abominably, and I will get every last scrap of wear out of them. 
The meat or chicken that we eat two or three times a week is always bought at Whole Foods Market, so it is guaranteed that the animal it came from led a good life, walking and grazing (or, in the case of chickens, pecking about) in green fields, with sunshine and rain.

  

Day 35

About 15F (-9C) wind-chill today, utterly freezing wind, good grief!  My lips couldn't talk properly when I tried to praise Molly.   Ran about 2km, although I forgot my pedometer, so don't know for sure, but I have a pretty good idea of how many circuits make a km, so I think I did 2 today.  My legs are quite achy tonight, I wish I could just open up something in my knees and squirt some oil in there to loosen things up. 

Nick fell asleep in front of the woodstove this evening while reading Moby Dick.  Matthew took some pictures of him without a flash and accidentally moved the camera during the long exposure, but I love this one, it is the epitome of sleep.

My self-portrait has some of the things I love besides my family, some literal and some symbolic.

It always amazes me how differently we perceive the world, and how ignorant and nasty some of us are.  The other day a man came by and struck up a conversation while Tim was gazing at a hole in a tree, waiting for an owl to perhaps pop out and sun itself.  He was interested in seeing the owl and Tim thought he was a fellow birdwatcher, but it turned out he was out hunting coyotes.  I saw a coyote a couple of weeks ago, in the forest, and was blissfully happy after seeing it, they are so elusive, so cautious, possibly from dealing with idiots like this man.