Day 151

One man went to mow... went to mow a meadow... One man and his dog... went to mow a meadow.  

I learnt this song when I was very little, from my brother who was a cub-scout. For years I thought Mo was a person, and his last name was Ameadow!

Tim mowed my path through the meadow today, as it had become completely overgrown. What a kind man!   It was a beautiful warm day, although very hazy and smoky. Apparently there are forest fires in Quebec that are running out of control and the prevailing winds have brought the smoke all the way down here!  There was an environmental warning for people with respiratory disorders to remain indoors, so I didn't run today, although I didn't remain indoors.  So sad, the land of Canada is covered with snow for much of the year, and then it warms up just a little and these horrific fires begin!

We all had a holiday today as it was Memorial Day, when we remember soldiers who have died in wars.  

So tonight I will remember the soldiers in my family who didn't die.  

My South African 'Pop', a tall, gangling man of limited affection, probably because he had lost his entire family when he was only 6 years old.  He served as a pilot in the Royal Flying corps in the First World War, but he couldn't drive a car, my dad taught him that.  

And my 'Gramp' in England, the long-boned twinkle-eyed man with the moustache, who went to fight in the trenches in France, was subjected to mustard gas which does various terrible things to the human body, including damage to the bronchial tubes, which resulted in his suffering from asthma for the rest of his life. 

They each came back from the war, and found women they loved, or thought they loved.  

Pop, whose real name was Gerald,  found a girl in England, from Cumberland, small fragile Gracie, and they returned to South Africa, where my mother, Joan, and her sister, Nora, were born.  But Gerald and Gracie were not very happy, although they did try very hard to love one another.  It was because of his lack of being loved when he was little, I believe, and in the first years of their marriage, my mother and her sister were taken back and forth several times between England and South Africa, whenever things became too bad between their parents. 

Gramp, named Arthur, was a farm laborer, who made the governess, Alice Emily, pregnant with my dad.  Which fact my father only discovered when he was 60 years old.  It made him very sad but it kind of explained a lot.  Arthur was a hardworking man who loved the earth and his "Em" was a loving mother but rather manipulative.  Their marriage lasted more than 60 years.

Then there is my dad, Jack.  Born at the end of the first world war, he was training to be a pilot in the second world war when he contracted meningitis, after which he was declared unfit for the pilot programme.  So he became a fitter and was in charge of fixing airplanes and making them fit to return to the fray.  On a ship diverted as a result of being torpedoed by german subs, he happily found himself gazing up at Table Mountain and it was love at first sight between my dad and South Africa, and also between my dad and my mother, who was handing out uniforms. 

And Joan and Jack were also married for more than 60 years, during which time they fought and laughed and loved and worked and traveled and, in the early years, produced three children, the last of which was me. 

And here I am, very ambivalent towards war and everything to do with it.  I despise the glorification of it all, the way every little boy wants to be a soldier, the way so much is still solved only by might, not negotiation.  But I also know that Hitler, for example, had to be stopped, and I'm not sure how else it could have been done, but it seems to me there is far too much violence and acceptance of it, in our world.   In games, in movies, and in days like today.  

Human beings, Homo Sapiens sapiens, have lived on earth for about 40 000 years and we have used our brains to learn so much, to know our planet, our bodies, why perhaps we evolved as we have done....  But as far as war is concerned we don't seem to know much more than we knew in the beginning. 

So here's my Memorial Day portrait:

Day 150

Angelina and her doting dad.  She loves playing "Leaf".  Here she has just floated down, wafting from one side to the other on the gentle breeze of her father's hands.

Her family came for brunch today and at 5 months now, she continues to charm everyone, including the three 17-year old boys who were in our house this morning.  She has a sweet nature and a kind of serenity about her already, like an old soul.

And I am going to get to babysit in a couple of weeks' time!

I have not been running again since Thursday because I coughed and coughed after that, and my sister said that I must wait to be completely better, so I am listening to her because she is a wise nursing sister.  I do visit my meadow every day with Molly.  The grasses grow taller each day, and the common milkwoods have tiny green notions of flowers within their tips.

Tim and I went for a walk around the Magnolia coastline, near where we used to live.  It is very beautiful there and we saw cormorants sunning themselves on the rocks, hanging out their umbrella-like wings to dry.  Eventually Tim went too close and they took off, heading for their island sanctuary, Kettle Island, where the boys had kayaked earlier for a picnic with a group of friends. 

I think of all the birds, I would love to be a cormorant, because they live at the sea and they can swim and dive and fly! There are only a few creatures on earth that can do that.  They also have turquoise eyes.

So here I am as a cormorant-woman.

Day 149

Tired old grys-baardjie (grey-beard).

Putting away the pots and pans yesterday, a folded paper fell from inside the top of the cupboard somehow, as though it had been hidden there, carefully stuck in place.  And I unfolded it with anticipation, with all kinds of thoughts and feelings going very fast through my mind, to the effect of it being a treasure-map of some kind. 

All our debts would be paid, our mortgage, the house would belong to us, we could get the girls over to live here permanently, we could put the boys through college without them having to incur massive student loan debt, we could have a retirement plan, go on vacations, give money to those of our friends and family who require assistance, never have to worry again.....

It was a diagram for how the burners on the stove-top were piped with gas.

An interesting perspective:

Day 148

Prom night!

All the beautiful children who are nearly there, nearly adults.  Gorgeous girls, handsome boys.  All looking scrubbed clean, newly minted, pretending to be grownups.

So strange sometimes, to notice my boys grown so tall.  A suit seems to add about two foot to every boy, all their friends suddenly towered above me, all these youngsters I have known since they were 11, which is still quite little really.

I remember being 17.  You think that you are the first person in the world to think so hard, to suffer so much, to love so deeply.  And so naive!  This generation at least has a better idea of how the opposite sex works.

It is 1am and I sit here in the almost-dark-but-for-the screen in our attic bedroom, Tim fast asleep in our bed, Lily moaning every now and then, asleep under my bedside table, very disgruntled to have been removed from "her" Lily-lounge.  Downstairs are about 20 or more 16 and 17-year olds, having an after-prom party.  They will eventually fall asleep at about 5am, I believe, but at the moment they are all singing along to loud music and telling funny stories in a circle of friends.

So my self-portrait, in the wee hours, in the dark where I can't draw anything, is a poem that I wrote for Tim for our 23rd anniversary, a few years' ago.

Anniversary

Was this the day it all began
I really can't remember
I know it happened at the beach

And that it was December

You took my feet into your hands

Such warmth and slow unraveling

I had not felt like this before

My senses all were traveling

I felt like I had always coped

It’s how I was taught to be

Divorce, with two blonde little girls

I’d thought, no one will love me

And then you came along one day

Driving that funny old car

You cared for us, you did your best

And you became our star

So on that day, with salty skin

I felt, I don’t deserve this

But then, I let myself unfold

You leaned in with a kiss

And consciously, with my whole mind

I fixed upon a choice

Destiny looked me in the eye

I found I had a voice

You trembled so, your lips abuzz 

The song our bodies sang

Together still we harmonize

More constant than when we were young

So come to me, my John the Baptist

My silver cloud in the rain

My blue-sky boy, my shining knight

That day, you were my gain

 

Day 147

Bells in the meadow.

The meadow and the woman

The meadow wondered if the woman would come today.

The raccoon had reported seeing her pale face reflecting the moon one night as she trailed behind her giant noisy sons up the path to the house.

The newest chipmunk had given an account of a dearth of seed, even though they could see her shape travelling past the windows.

Occasionally in the mornings she had come to the edge, where the road empties into the grass, and coughed a bit, but then had turned again with the black dog for home.

The meadow missed her.  It had grown accustomed to her presence at some time each day, had felt her firm feet muffled by the soft blanket of winter snow, magnified by drought-packed summer earth, rippling through the many-coloured leaves of autumn, and avoiding young milkweed shoots in spring.

It had enveloped her in its arms when she sat crying on the old bench.  It had made certain that the occasional falls had not been bad ones, she had broken no bones.  It had shone and sparkled with her on her sunny days.

And here she was at last!  Entering the meadow in her sky-blue shoes, looking around her amazed at a week's developments.  The meadow hastily put on its best behaviour:
Grasses waved gently at the woman, some caressing her waist. 
Little star flowers shone amidst the greenery.
A bush of white daisies appeared out of nowhere to delight the woman.
Birds flew across and across again, swooping and soaring and revelling in their flight.
Other birds stood high on their narrow legs, singing their green songs. 
Frogs croaked at her from their luscious pond.
Celandine enchanted her with its careful yellow and green covering of the old dry ribs of another plant.
The birches stood tall and white-barked, telling her their old old stories.
The abiding great oak quietly beckoned her to rest beneath its shadow.
Buttercups glowed like nebulae in the shady grass, little lanterns for her feet. 
And the sky turned slowly and contemplated the woman as she jogged her circuit three times.

And at last, reluctantly, the tired woman slipped out of the circulating eddies of the field and started for home.  Once again she had been woven into the meadow's memory.  She looked down at herself, discovering that she was like a bee, dusted all over with pollen, quite golden.

Day 146

It was 95F (35C) today, and all furry creatures (and also largely hairless ones) felt very hot and lethargic.  Lily the cat spent many hours in the slight breeze afforded by the passage.  Matthew came home and said, "Oh look, it's a rug."  Because she is so old and diminished that she is just about flat when she lies stretched out!

I went to the opening of the art exhibition at the boys' school, and it is always interesting to compare it with my school. 

This is the first year for the boys in the beautiful new school building,  the 'greenest' school in Massachusetts.  There are three art teachers, each with their own huge fully-equipped studio, Photography/Graphic Design, Ceramics and Painting/Drawing. There is a data-projector and smart board in each room, an ipod jack with surround sound speakers, just everything state-of-the-art.  It is a public school, so it is free.   Apart from the ceramics, which we don't have, I think their art is of a similar standard to ours.  Instead of ceramics, we have quite a lot of sculpture.  And we are getting our own permanently mounted data projector installed over the summer!

Interesting also to see how they get people to attend the opening.  There is something called the National Art Honor Society, to which all high school art students can belong.  So each year they have a little ceremony with the induction of the new members, of which there are many. Members of the society do community service so it is a valuable society in many ways.  They also had a speaker this year, in the form of my friend who is an amazing commercial photographer.  He had a wonderful slideshow about which he spoke, evoking laughter and appreciation.

At our 'vernissage', we have children who give musical performances and little theater performances to try to draw the crowds.  Also, everyone here lives in one of two small towns so no one has far to come, whereas at my school people have to come from all over the place, sometimes from a location more than an hour away. 

The tradition at the boys' school is for the more senior members to provide cakes in the form of a famous artwork.  So tonight my portrait is the cake which Matthew made in the form of Shepard Fairey's Andre the Giant stencil, for which I provided all the ingredients, the supervision, and the encouragement, and which was the only cake to disappear completely in a matter of minutes.

Day 145

Lils the little old cat.

And then there is the spittlebug or froghopper, which creates for itself a casing of foam in which to live as a nymph, while it sucks away at the plant on which it sits.  Then, it leaps 100 times its own length!  And lands on another plant and proceeds to damage that one too.   They are the best jumpers in the world, better even than fleas, and the jumping legs are so specialised that they just drag along the ground when they are not being used for leaping. Tim and I noticed quite a few in the meadow the other day.

And in the store today, I was waiting at the fish counter, when the couple ahead of me asked for two lobsters.  I can't bear that they are alive, that people plunge them into boiling water to cook them.  They sat there on the scale with their taped-up claws and investigated the air with their little antennae and looked around with their amazing crystalline eyes.  Their antennae and antennules are covered with hairs which are dense with nerve cells, so it kind of stands to reason that they would feel pain.  There are some chefs who kill the lobsters humanely before boiling them, but most believe that because there is no central nervous system they do not feel pain.  Descartes has a lot to answer for, centuries of cruelty to animals actually.  I had to walk very fast to the cereal aisle to compose myself, although I wanted to shout and scream at every ignorant cruel bastard in that store.

The Registry of Motor Vehicles (RMV) is where you get your driver's license and several other important documents.  A driver's license in America is like a magical key that will open all kinds of doors for you.  To work at the RMV you have to pass a test to prove that you are the meanest person on earth.

After a year of driving on my international license I had to get a Massachusetts one.  The meanest person on earth, who was of course behind my counter, asked me to jump through so many hoops, for so many days, that at one point I just stood there in the middle of the floor and shouted, "WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO DO TO PROVE YOU'RE A HUMAN BEING IN THIS FUCKING COUNTRY!?!"  They then gathered me and all my paperwork and belongings together and ushered me into this little room, where they offered me a drink of water, (the cure for all ills) and asked me, in a pointed manner, to calm down because I was disturbing all the other poor people present in that awful place.

Sometimes it is alright to protest, but I suppose you have to pick your fights.

Tonight another little ink drawing, of a garden in Ipswich.

Day 144 (a gross of days)

Spider sunning itself.

Emma learnt a poem when she was very small, by Christina Rossetti, which went like this:

Hurt no living thing:
Ladybird, nor butterfly
Nor moth with dusty wing,
Nor cricket chirping cheerily,
Nor grasshopper so light of leap,
Nor dancing gnat, nor beetle fat,
Nor harmless worms that creep.

She seems to have had buddhist tendencies, this poet, as do I. 

The only things I really don't mind killing are ticks, mosquitoes and winter moths, and there are probably some others that I can't think of right now, maybe fleas too.  But generally things have their place in the food chain and in one year there might be more of one species of insect than another, but nature tends to even out extremes.  Human beings are the ones who inevitably scramble the order.

This morning I noticed a common grackle hiding under the salvia bush, desperately trying to crack open a peanut he had extricated from the feeder.  I particularly love grackles because they are so shiny-headed and they chat quietly to themselves constantly like old men, as if to say, "Oh, here are some nuts....  mmmnh, I think I will just help myself....Ahhh, if I could just get this one out.... Yay, I've got it, I've got it, now where to go....." (Apparently they can become pests, but we only have a couple of them a day)  A bluejay noticed the grackle and, instead of doing a bit of work to get one of the nuts out for itself, it preferred to intimidate the more timorous bird, amusing itself by leaping down from branch to branch until it was right next to the other bird, trying to scare the grackle into dropping the nut.  The grackle wisely flew off with its nut firmly clutched in its beak.

We have flying ants under our windowsill.  We were very relieved to find out that they are not termites, which could be disastrous.  Apparently flying ants can also cause structural damage to your house, but they don't EAT wood like termites do.  So we have to get someone in to have a look at these insects, a specialist (imagine being a specialist in ridding houses of certain bugs!).  However, we already have a couple of exterminators: two spiders who are growing rather fat, since they have built their webs just under the windowsill, and below, on the floor, lie the shrivelled-up sucked-dry bodies of many flying ants.  Perhaps we can leave it to these specialists?

At school today one of my upper school students was doing a self-portrait and so I sat and did a portrait of her.  She loved it and took it home to her mom.  The  mouth is not that good because she talked so much!

Day 143

Pools of light this morning.

Watching a bumble bee in the rhododendrons I noticed that they are very inelegant within the bloom, kind of falling about, even wriggling around upside down at one stage.  I wonder if this is to get as much pollen as possible or if they are just clumsy fat little anomalies.  I remember my father telling me that the bumblebee is not supposed to be able to fly, aerodynamically they are completely wrong for flight.  However, this is a myth which was put out by some Swiss engineer, and bumblebees can fly because their wings encounter dynamic stall with every oscillation, which is something like a vortex of air which is formed by the movement of the wings, which the body then rides on, a little like how a helicopter works.

No running again, as I have still been ill today, utterly miserable, my head full of pain and snot and tears, it would seem.  I read a book about the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa in 1995, which brought back all kinds of memories of the terrible times of the 80's, and resulted in a lot of 'snot en trane' (the aforementioned wet-nosed weeping).  And once you let yourself go about one subject, all the sadness in the world leaps in for a chance at your tears, the oil spilling into the Gulf of Mexico, the fact that you will never see your mother or your father again, your daughters living in other countries because of the stupid laws of your adopted country. 

Tim kindly comforted me, and eventually I "pulled myself towards myself" as Jess used to say.

I hate being sick, it makes you weak and feeble and ridiculous.  I am so disappointed in my body for giving in to this virus, too.  I know everyone hates being laid-up, but as I joked with Emma today, I loathe it more than anyone else.  Being such a sickly child was enough illness for a lifetime. 

A drawing of a farm nearby for today.

Day 142

Blue butterfly in the meadow.

Just a walk with Molly today, no run because I have a bad cold.  I think I caught the virus from my friend's grandson the other day, or from Emma, over the phone!  I am feeling rather miserable. 

Gary Snyder, the Buddhist poet, believes that it is etiquette to know the names of plants and animals, just as it is to know and remember people's names. 

In America I have learnt a whole new set of birds and wildflowers and tame flowers and trees and animals.  There is not the enormous variety that we have in South Africa, but they are all  just as fascinating.  For example, how coyotes have adapted so well to urban life that a whole den of them was found at the back of a closed-down restaurant in Massachusetts.  There is a six-month hunting season for coyotes and 90 000 are killed each year.  And they still manage to thrive.  We have heard their wailing calls at night in high summer, lying in our hot attic room with just a sheet covering us, chilled by the sound.  And I was thrilled to see one in the forest, a shadow flitting away and gone in a second.

My portrait today is my little figure finished.  She is a birthday gift for a friend of mine.  She is a primary person, blue and red and yellow with white!

Day 141

Beautiful clematis, as large as a hand.

A kiss to build a dream on.

She goes to drop off her tall handsome son at his date's elegant house.  He is off to a prom, a senior high school dance.  He looks very beautiful with his light blue eyes like his grandfather and great-grandfather before him. His elongation constantly astonishes her, his long legs clad in their black suit pants, which she just finished lengthening this morning.  When she walks with either of her sons she has to run or skip every second step to keep up with the stretch of their stride.

The house is very close to her husband's work and she has a sudden desire to see him, to be happy, to tell him important things.  She calls and they arrange to meet at a coffee place nearby.

When she arrives he is already there, and she walks in, aware of him watching her, a bit shy, even after all these years.  He reaches for her and pulls her in, a big public smooch, a huge long hug.

There is a big difference between a kiss in the open and a kiss in private.  Kissing before an audience is a statement of intent - this is my choice, this is my person, my spouse, this is my beautiful lover.

She climbs up on to the high chair and her flip-flops fall to the floor. Comfortably barefoot, she looks into his kind eyes, notes his greying hair, his aging face, just like hers, the soft crows' feet.  She launches into the important things, the way they need to worry less, the happy occasion of the weekend, what they will do together.

He says that he wants to weed the driveway and she says "good luck with that".  He tells her she can sit with him while he does it and she says she has no desire whatsoever to pull the weeds out of the gravelly driveway.  She feels very positively about weeds. He smiles broadly and tells her that she is getting weirder with age, that they are weeds, and weeds do not belong.  She asks him if he will stay with her if she gets any stranger than she is already.  She identifies with weeds, and the bees love the weeds, which all have flowers and are beautiful, and are doing no one any harm, are they, just living among the pebbles.  He laughs and tells her that yes, he will stay with her, but there are limits, like if she goes completely barmy.

That is fair enough, and she will never go completely barmy, she hopes.

When they get home they go for a long walk through the meadows, through the tall grass, through the lilting birdsong, through the sky with its glowing gibbous moon (she explains to him what a gibbous moon is), through the field with its ancient apple trees which have lost the will to bear apples, through the gangly fiddlehead ferns at the pond, through the oak and the birch and the white pines, and the sixteen different kinds of maple trees, through the falling light, through their myriad kisses, through their dreams.

Day 140

Shimmering grasses after the rain.

Everything was magical in the meadow this morning. The whole field of grass sparkled and shimmered like a city of lights, which seems to be a back-to-front comparison.

My head began singing all the morning songs, and when I got to Morning has broken, the Cat Stevens version, I remembered Jess and Emma singing this for a video to be sent to Granny and Grandpa.  Jess was about 5, and she sang the first three lines perfectly, "Morning has broken... Like the first morning... Blackbird has spoken..." Then, obviously the blackbird channelling Jess,  "Kwa kwa kwa kwa!" and it was never the same song after that!

When we don't know the words of a song, we more than likely sing a version of "tada, tada tada tada, tada tada tada tada, dadadadada" (pink panther) or "nana nana na, nanana nana"(strangers in the night), or "la la la lala, lala lala" (He ain't heavy, he's my brother).   Those are the consonants most commonly used.  I wonder why we don't sing "kakaka ka kakaka ka" or "sa sa sasa sa sa sasa", or "vava vava va vava vava va".

Photographs in my head
A perfectly red butterfly with black spots landing on a perfectly yellow buttercup.
Two carpenter bees having a very heated argument (or dance) as I run past.
The mockingbird sitting very still so that I won't see her.

A very surprised Amelia the female turkey breaking into a run on meeting me three times in different parts of the meadow.
Glowing pools of sunlight on the forest floor.
Lily squinting up at me after she takes her gentle constitutional in the bright sunshiny afternoon.
The piggie with her little innocent black face, waiting, waiting, for someone to feed her, someone to pet her, her whole life spent waiting in that cage, poor thing.  (I will NEVER ever have an animal in a cage again).
And a dear little boy, the 16 month old grandson of my friend, with his soft cheeks and his fat little thighs, sleeping with such complete trust next to his grandmother.





A flower from the rhododendron next to the deck, our "temperature-tree" in the winter.

Beautiful bushes, their buds come out before the winter even begins, pointedly perch on the ends of the branches through the snow and the frost, and then this spectacular bright purple and pink abundance of flowers bursts out at the end of spring.

If bees make honey only from rhododendrons, it is known as "mad honey", and has been used in warfare by generals like Hannibal, because it causes the eater (in this case the soldiers of the army you wish to defeat) to become, very quickly, utterly intoxicated and very ill.  And then the opposing army just swoops in and overwhelms them just like that!

An image from one of my notebooks from last year this time, when I was flying back from England after Emma's 30th birthday.

Day 139

Wet path through the meadow.

What a lot of water falling from the sky!  Visited the meadow twice today, its green shiny wetness quite enticing, and on the way up, the pine-needled forest floor with moisture-added colour - a deep rusty redness.

I ran 2.22 miles (3.57 km) through the cold rain this evening.  Wet wet shoes, cold cold toes... and then, warm toes, each foot creating a little wetsuit out of its running shoe.

I can almost not bear to listen to the radio anymore, hearing about the oil gushing out of the sea floor in the Gulf of Mexico, and now perhaps becoming part of the Gulf Stream and threatening the beautiful wetlands of the Florida Keys, and even our own east coast!  It is too difficult, too heart-searing to contemplate.

This evening after supper Nick and I were talking while Matthew unpacked the dishwasher, when Nick suddenly exclaimed, "You can't be serious, Matt", and I looked around to see Matthew building a tower out of bowls and other crockery on the second shelf of the cupboard, just adding things randomly as he took them from the dishwasher!  I too scolded him and he then complained that his "creativity was being stifled".

Whenever you can't find a kitchen utensil, or something like a jug, which has a set place in a cupboard, you have to think very laterally, like Matthew, to locate it where it is happily ensconced with foreign objects, a jug alone amongst the plates, or a puzzled fork suddenly finding itself sleeping with the spoons. 

When I returned from my morning walk with the black dog through the soft dewy day, my damp hair was escaping from my hood in tender tendrils caressing my face.

Day 138

Little red squirrel destroying the bird-feeder.

This squirrel finally discovered how to execute an amazing leap on to the window-feeder.  He then proceeded to gnaw with his ultra-strong metal-like teeth at the openings, thus destroying it forever and ensuring that I never put another feeder in that particular spot.  Squirrels are very intelligent beings and could probably take over the earth.

It was the last class for my 12th graders this afternoon so we had a little party, with gateau and biscuits and milk.   I will miss them so, this Tigger and this Eeyore.  They have entered my heart, these two boys.  I asked one of them whether he was happy to be leaving school forever, and he replied, to my astonishment, that he would do this year all over again if he could!  He gave a brilliant recommendation for our school, when he said that the students are all amazing and very tolerant, and the teachers all care about the kids.  It is true, I think because all these students are well-travelled, so they know and understand being foreign, and therefore never treat someone as an outsider.

He also had a brilliant idea for war, as, like most other teenage boys, he loves playing video games.  He had the idea that countries should still train armies, because you can never stop the male warrior soul, but instead of fighting real wars, they should send their best soldiers to play a war video-game, or something like laser-tag, and then the winner gets what had originally been agreed upon by the two sides as the prize, although he thought that this system might run into difficulties if what had been agreed upon was an entire country, for example.

I drove home in the rain tonight with the lovely voice of Jose Carreras floating around my ears as I sailed through the storm in the warm, dry sanctuary of my car. I thought of my dad, who really appreciated music and had a whole listening ritual.  He would put on a cd and sit down in his Morris chair, the same chair he had my entire life, which probably still bears his imprint.  If someone was around, he would draw them in by noting, in that utterly certain way he had, "Now THIS is music," then lean back and blissfully experience the melody.  Invariably then he would close his eyes and drift off to his famous 'forty winks', after which he was miraculously invigorated to leap up and make tea, or work in his garden, or fix someone's fridge.  It was never in his nature to sit for long.

My portrait today is a wire salamander which I made as an example for my grade 6 wire sculpture class, and I finished it today when I had a bit of free time.  It is a blue-eyed Bouwer salamander.  There are salamanders in our pond which have tadpoles which live two or three winters under the ice, only metamorphosing in their third or fourth spring!  

Day 137

One of my 'girls'.

My nuc seems to have taken.  I watch them with delight every day.  Matthew thinks we should leave them to their own devices, not bother the new queen, just let them take their natural course.  Maybe we will check on them in a couple of weeks' time.  The workers are certainly toiling away, coming in to land with an exhausted bump down on the landing-board, their little baskets heavy-laden with pollen of many colours.

At the barbecue yesterday I played 'Stuck-in-the-mud' or 'Statues' with all the children.  I ran about, one of the wild things, feeling the excitement of nearly being caught, the dread of the catcher nearby, the laughing exhilaration of evading her, and the best feeling of all, helping a stuck person escape, by crawling under their wide open legs! 

Which must have been a sight, this ageing woman falling to her belly, then trying to crawl between the legs of a stick-legged 5 year old boy!  My companions were all such little sprites, flitting about on their slender spring-like legs, diving through one another's stuck-in-the-mud limbs, leaping over the flower-beds, weighing next to nothing, while I bumbled along, my body's memory intent on its childhood moves of long ago, but always a few laboured steps behind. 

Day 136

And blue grass.

And then there were six people who were a family although only four of them lived together still, which is what happens to families, unfortunately, when children grow up, and which will eventually mean that only two will live together, which will be a sad state of affairs to begin with, and then will probably become easier as time goes on, which is the general rule with time and hurt, it would seem.

And then there was a day called Sunday, and the four split into two and one couple went to a braaivleis (barbecue) with a group of South African friends, and they are like the grandparents, (die oupa en ouma) so they took presents for the little children, although in typical fashion, the good intentions went awry, because the boys' toys needed batteries, for goodness' sake, and these were not, of course, on hand, now were they?

And the other couple, who happen to be born on the very same day, a minute apart, went to the beach with their friend, and jumped off the high rocks into the exhilaratingly cold Atlantic, coming home happy and tired with cut feet and reddened shoulders.

And then did I mention that the Sunday in question was the most beautiful Sunday for a long time, with blue sky, and sunshine, and pretty fluffy clouds, which make a sky bigger, really?  And that in the late afternoon one person from the ouma and oupa couple went running in her spring-green meadow, 2.09 miles (3.4 km) with a new moon rising in the west to greet her as she ran home to the warmly lit house, so inviting through the windows.

And that I would really have liked to do an image of my house from outside but that for want of time, which cures hurt (up to a point) but out of which I run every day, I have instead a drawing I did in a Madrid park on our way to South Africa in 2008, when, exhausted from no sleep for hours and hours, we loitered in a park like homeless people, the boys lying fast asleep on the benches, Tim slumped nearby, and me the only one really awake and paying attention, the shepherd watching over my lambs, loving the fountain, and the different birds, the lyrical language floating past my ears, the newness of it all.

Day 135

Pink grasses.

Once there were trees on the shoulder at exit 22.  Now there is just a horrifying absence. My heart lurches past trying not to think.

Once there was a girl with a mother and father and sister and brother and a wonderful dog called Timmy.  Now there are just two sisters and a brother.  There is a gash inside my head which opens periodically.

Once there was a sunny country with many loyal friends.  Now there is a country of extremes.  I struggle against the rip-tide.

Once there was a township school full of black students that I loved and taught my passions of language and art.  Now there is an international school full of privileged students that I love and teach.  I learn from them all.

Once there was an old yellow VW bus, in which many happy times were had.  Now there is a memory of rocks flung through windows and shards of glass cutting my face and hands, stuck in my hair like thorns.  My sense of trust like the shattered panes.

Once there was a wife with a husband who was gay.  Now there are two beautiful daughters.  All three women living on different continents with a small healed fracture of the heart.

Once there was a young beautiful man who was detained in prison for his convictions.  Now his large and loving family has grown and moved.  He still practices the same resilience which saw him through that terrible experience.  He is still beautiful.  And full of light. 

Once there was a happy old stone house called 16 Cross Street, where so many people had walked to and fro that there was a big worn dip in the comfortable old yellow-wood step in the passage.  Now there is a place on Southern Avenue where we four, and sometimes six, who are people from the south, live and love.  Every time I make a wish it is for us all to live in the same country. 

Once there was a firm-breasted soft-skinned prettyish girl, who revelled in her smooth tanned belly, her comely ankles, her intellect.  Now there is a 54 year old woman whose belly has nurtured 4 babies, with lines on her face and a skew smile, who is turning into her mother and her father at once, but who still revels in her body and her brain, which have done her very well so far and which she continues to encourage and congratulate.  But the mirror surprises me every day.

Self-portrait cartwheeling across the world, straddling the distances between us all.

Day 134

It was a beautiful vernissage, with children playing instruments with such skill and emotion, and the music teacher singing Puccini with her coloratura voice which fills the entire hall without need of amplification, and art all around making people stop and stare and wonder and be proud. 

My husband surprised me at 4 o'clock because he couldn't be there tonight, bearing flowers, the sweetiepie, although he did admit to the flowers being someone else's idea (thanks Chris).  I was very touched that he came all that way to see my art show, even though he is quickly bored at art museums.  So tonight, after all the accolades and excitement, I carefully balanced the flowers on top of the car while I found the keys and settled everything on the back seat, and then drove the 30 miles home, where, as I picked up everything to bring inside, I suddenly recalled their whereabouts.  I even looked on the roof of the car.  I hope someone finds them and they don't just get run over like a squirrel. 

While the music teacher was singing, these two little girls who are twins, I think, about 4 years old, started twirling and dancing, just like my two daughters used to do, whenever we went to concerts or recitals.  They would spin and frolic, completely oblivious, loving the music which made their bodies go.  Such free spirits. Tonight there were people who told the two little girls to stop, made them sit down, but I thought it was lovely.  I suppose there were people gnashing their teeth when my daughters did the same thing, but I didn't notice them. 

Self-portrait - tired tired tired!  What a long week!  I need to be fast asleep and dreaming...

Day133

Collage of art exhibition examples.

Well, it's nearly all hung, just the upper school and putting out all the sculptures on the tables tomorrow, and the labeling, which Tim is always kind enough to help me with, and without whom I would go completely insane and throw the computer through the window!  I don't know how he sits there patiently going through possible solution after possible solution!  He always gets it perfectly in the end, amazing!  So now I go off armed with about 500 labels to put up tomorrow morning, thanks to my imperturbable, persistent, uncomplaining computer-genius husband.

We were serenaded by dear little 1st, 2nd and 3rd graders this morning, all practicing for the chorus concert this afternoon.  And the two teachers practiced their amazing piece, the voice filling the entire hall without benefit of a microphone, simply astounding.  So at 2 o'clock everyone filed in and 4 groups sang to us, the petite chorale, the middle school chorus, a new all boys' a capella group, and then the 9th grade.  As I watched all the parents smiling and filming and taking photographs, I remembered my own dear little things when they were that age, and how proud you are to watch your own child sing an entire difficult song perfectly, so proud you could burst into blossom sitting right there in your chair. 

I still enjoyed the concert with all my heart, even though I had no child of my own singing.  I suppose it is because they are all my children, I know them, I've watched them grow up from little things.  It is always lovely to see a different side to my students. 

Today I was putting up images when one of the 6th grade classes came in to sit on the floor and do a music crossword puzzle because they were supposed to have a music lesson then, but the teacher was busy rehearsing with another group.  They all sat down far from me on the opposite side of the gym, looking keenly at their own pictures, seeing which ones I had chosen to exhibit.  When suddenly, as if overcome by all the art, one little dark-haired boy broke away from the rest and came running over to me with his arms wide, and gave me a huge hug, telling me "You're the best teacher, Mrs Bouwer!"  This child has been having a sad time for the past month so that his parents have been called in, and maybe he said it to more than one teacher, but it warmed the cockles alright.

I needed a run badly and so went for a short sharp one when I got home at 7 this evening.  Grey cirrus fanned out in the east like a child's drawing of a sun, and in the west there was pink and gold, and above me, a dome of blue. Two cottontails ran from me, and hid, then ran again as I got closer.  Cardinals who love the twilight sang their evening songs, and mockingbirds had their last conversations of the day.  I ran about 2 km, although I didn't measure it with the pedometer, but I know the distances more or less by now. 

My portrait tonight is a very quick image, of me teetering on a ladder in the gym this evening, when everyone had gone.  I decided to just quickly see how I could hang these wire and papier-mache sculptures, and then decided to change the place they were tied to and hang them from the basketball net frame instead.  I had to hang on to the nylon fishing line for dear life because the weight of them nearly pulled me off my perch!

Day 132

The sky in the water at our pond.

I couldn't run today, because we are busy putting up our all-school annual art exhibition.  I took Molly for a short walk this morning before school, checked in on the bees, who are all hunkering down with this cold spell, but they buzzed satisfactorily when I put my ear to each hive.  And the meadow was full of birds and green as green can be, when it is grass-green and leaf-green and new-flower-green and even grasshopper-green, springing away from each footfall.

The exhibition is always such a lot of concentrated work, all the finishing and mounting and hanging and finding new ways to display sculptures, and then the final labeling.  And so to the 'Vernissage', the grand opening on Friday night, where a few children present short theatre pieces, and some exquisite musical pieces, and a couple of the teachers perform their sublime duo of piano and voice, and the dingy ancient gym glows with art of many colours, bedecked like an old grey elephant in India is decorated and transformed for a celebration.

So here is the self-portrait, atop the elephant of the ISB gym, all adorned with the beautiful art which my students have made all year.  It is always with a sense of enchanted discovery that I go through all the pieces to choose those that will go on exhibit.  I look at the image or sculpture and think, "Did they really do this?"  And then you mount them and put them up on the wall and they look even better!

It is interesting to note that the younger children's art seems to be more colourful, or bolder, than that of the upper school.  I suppose life is more cheerful when you are younger and more innocent. 

Day 131

Hobbit bench.

Do girls just generally have a brighter view of the world?  Talking to my older students, I find that the girls are so much more positive than the boys, in their interests, their view of the world, their relationships with one another, just about everything.  While the boys like violent movies and heavy music, the girls are more drawn to dramas and more pleasant-sounding songs.  It makes you believe in stereotypes.

Evolutionary psychology, a relatively new field (30+ years) posits that play has an evolved biological basis.  Research with human children and vervet monkeys has yielded very similar results in terms of females choosing dolls and boys choosing trucks. You could extrapolate from that the progression from trucks to violent games and movies, and from dolls to quiet dramas.

Tim and I and the boys saw the trailer of a movie called Kickass together.  It looked like a spoof on superhero movies, with real kids trying to be superheroes.  So when it came out I suggested that we all go to see it.  My friend Karen told me that it had received very mixed reviews, mainly because it was incredibly violent, Quentin-Tarantino-violent.  Children are the main characters, including a little girl, who apparently kills grown men in the most graphically bloody way.  This very reason put me off ever having the faintest desire to see the movie, but sent the boys and Tim into enthusiastic anticipation of it!  It is so bizarre. 

And today on the radio I heard an interview with Sebastian Junger, who spent 15 months with an American platoon in a remote region of Afghanistan and then wrote a book about it called simply, War.  He said that when the men get home, they all miss the war terribly, they miss the excitement, the fighting, and most of all the "brotherhood".   It seems as though men always have to go through something together, like being in a war, or climbing a mountain, or running a marathon, or some kind of hardship, in order to be able to reach out to one another and talk about real things, like love, like family, like life, in order to feel part of this "brotherhood".  Women can just have a cup of tea together and they will soon tell each other their whole lives, they're part of the sisterhood before they even sit down.
 

Gerhard Richter did paintings which look like blurry photographs.  So I have done an actual blurry photograph for tonight.  A metaphor for confusion, everything not quite in focus.

Day 130

Tim and sky at the Cox Reservation yesterday.

"Where'd all the good people go?" goes the song by Jack Johnson.  A good soundtrack for today.  On days like this it is difficult to have faith in people.  I feel I will never be anything but a foreigner in this strange country.

But then you come home and your family are the good people, your son who asks you how your interminable day has been, and listens to you, and reassures you, like he is the mother, all the while eating his bowl of cereal, sitting at the table opposite you, having his strange supper at 9.30pm!  And then he tells you all about his sailing today and how amazing it all is, how exciting, how his team is already planning to get to Nationals (which they just missed) next year.

And the other son is a bit sad and tired too, after his long long day, so you urge him to eat, give him the special drink you bought for them, and after a few bites and slurps and telling of his tale, he too is feeling much better, his blood sugar levels adjusted for happiness.

And then your husband arrives home from his photography club meeting, and he too listens and tells and is philosophically optimistic (about virtually everything in life), so that with all these intertwining conversations, the stories of our lives, you regain your equilibrium, your little shining sun inside.

And one of the dear little hummingbirds came to the feeder last night, and I saw her again this morning, a true sign of spring/summer, the most beautiful and delicate of birds, I marvel each time I see them, I never tire of the sight.  I am too tired to do any creative thing tonight, so this is my photographic portrait of a hummingbird.

Day 129

Dandelion and dandelion ghost.

Mother's day.  Lovely cards from my boys, messages and phone calls from my girls far away.  A special brunch from my husband for me and my friend Markie.  And a lovely walk in the Cox reservation, where we saw our first bobolink!

My fifth Mother's Day without my mother.  I think that you never really get over your mother's death.  I remember her still missing her own mum acutely, when she herself was in her eighties and my grandmother had already been dead for twenty years. 

You just miss that love, that enfolding love that you had for your whole life, that singing in the car, cuddling in her bed, watching over your illnesses, empathising with your teenaged angst, keeping in contact every week once you had left home, that pride in your educational achievements, for the jobs you held, being there for your first baby, and your second, and your third and fourth a whole lot later, sharing all their infant developments, their learning leaps, their childhood ups and downs and teenage twirling you around, your decision to leave the country which broke her heart but wanted you to do, making the journey to America when she was already in her eighties, twice.  She had  more than a touch of class, my mother.  She was a true lady. I sat in the meadow with long picturesque thoughts about her this evening. 

I ran 1.45 miles only because my arm was very sore and swollen from a bee-sting.  I look down at my arm to check the swelling and it is my mother's arm, with all the age-spots, the wrinkles.  I used to hate resembling her but now I am happy to notice likenesses.

Tonight here is the next development of my dancer/swimmer figure.  I haven't decided how she will finally be yet. 

Day 128

Ribs of the fallen beast.

Such a wet watery day, gloomy, everything sodden. My husband works too hard, too much.  

I run 2.43 miles (about 4km) in the pouring rain, the trees drooping with the weight of water, me laden with the weight of worry - debt, bills, mortgage.  Running helps - some of the weights slip off your shoulders as you are loping along, and you can leave them behind to find their own way home.  Thunder and lightning send me hurtling down the path for the safety of our house before I am too tired to run anymore. 

Once when we were camping on the Saco river Tim drove our car to a bridge about 5 miles away, then rode back to our camp on his bicycle, whereupon we set off on two kayaks downstream.  Wearing only our bathing suits, we took turns to paddle in the kayaks or swim and drift on the current.  When we were about 2 miles from our destination a huge thunderstorm struck us with pelting rain and scary bursts of lightning, so we got off the water and huddled shivering on tiny little patch of sand, a mini-beach.  We were so cold that we all cuddled together in a circular group hug, our bare-skinned bodies gradually warming from one another.  I felt so utterly happy in that embrace, my husband and two big sons all laughing, our movement together a kind of primitive dancing, linked by blood, family.  I remember thinking then, that it was one of those moments that I would never forget, a photograph in my head.

This evening I dropped Nick off to sing in the a capella group at a function, then waited in the school parking lot for Matthew to arrive on the bus from sailing.  All the sun-tipped clouds in the upper atmosphere were moving slowly across the recently washed sky, in a vaguely northerly direction, while lower down in the sky, at about the same pace, drifted damp grey rain-clouds in the opposite direction, gracefully breaking apart. 

Looking up at the beautiful new school building that I still can't quite believe they got so right, I notice, on the top floor, their backs politely towards us, two naked couples, one missing both arms, the other missing their entire skins.  It is the science lab.  There are also two pelvises (pelvi?) with spines, nothing else.  Are they a couple too?  Are we so different in every way?

This self-portrait while waiting in the car.