Fireworks last night on the beach, brunch today at a house on the parade route. There was a young mentally challenged woman in a wheelchair next to me, her mother and father hovering over her as she leapt up again and again in excitement at the parade's variety - bagpipes, marching bands, floats. She was so happy, kept turning her beaming face up to them in wonder at these amazing things she was seeing.
It made me think how lucky I am to have healthy children in mind and body, how sad it must be to have a child like that, someone who is like a baby still really, who needs to be restrained so that she doesn't run across the road, who still needs so much looking after even though she is fully grown.
A little later, near the end of the parade's course, I saw the father come around to the front of the wheelchair and take a photograph of his daughter, her delight almost palpable. And he was grinning with it all too, he was so glad for his daughter, and he wanted to commemorate this day with a photograph, just as a regular person would, just like I did today too. I took a few pictures of my boys standing tall and handsome with all their friends, smiling, but understanding everything, being aware of one another, conscious of their lives, planning what next to do with their free Sunday, watching girls, interacting, my beloved, just-about grown-up sons. And I thought, no matter what you children turn out to be, they are still your children, you still love them with that enormous parental love. That damaged girl is so lucky to have a dad like that.
It was about 35C today, and humid, so I didn't really have time to run because we went out to supper too.
In Campagny (continued)
"I am Luca", he said. "I come from another time."
"Looker", responded the parrot, "This is clear, but how did you come?"
"I followed Norena when she left, so I knew the gate."
The parrot regarded him quizzically. "Who is Norena?"
"She came to our time for supplies and I helped her. Her name is Norena Skull-Engraver."
The parrot told him then that there were thousands of people in this farea, and she didn't know any Norenas. Luca responded that he had to find her, that he would find her, that she was a skull-engraver, which shouldn't be too hard to find.
The bird gazed out over the green landscape. Luca looked too, and saw a wide blue sky for the first time in his life. Light streamed over everything, beautiful to see.
"I am the guard of this gate. My name is Beeze." said the parrot, stretching out one green and blue wing and then the other, in a dignified, unhurried manner. "I decide if you stay or go back."
Luca briefly wondered how a smallish bird could stop a grown man from staying if he really wanted to, but he refrained from saying anything.
"Looker," said the bird eventually, after contemplating the valley for an interminable time, "Why is my name Beeze?"
Luca racked his brains for a few seconds, then answered, "Because you're the breeze without the Rrrrrrrrrr", and he rolled his r's together in a long flowing tongue-tapping sound.
The bird regarded him with what would, on a human, have been a smile.
I ran just over 4 km today, became re-acquainted with my pretty meadow, filled with grasshoppers, butterflies, and the heady scent of milkweed. Two blood-red male cardinals chased one another right across my path, so close that my face felt the breath of their wings. And I saw 3 scarlet monarch butterflies loving their milkweed, lilting through the blossoms, the first or second generation, the fourth of which will fly the long migration south at the end of August.
Languages affect your perception of words. There is a sign on our road, we pass it on our way home every day, a little hand-painted sign which reads: DANS
Welding&
FABRICATION
So, because of Afrikaans, (the word dans is to dance in English) I have always seen people learning to dance when I read the first line. The last line makes me imagine people being taught to lie, to fabricate. I often think, what an interesting place that must be, where you not only learn to dance and to lie, but even to weld!
When we first arrived here, there are these signs in the road which say Ped Xing. One day I asked Jess, "What on earth is a ped xing?", clicking my x like an xh in isiXhosa. Of course Jess fell about laughing, because it is what we call in South Africa a zebra crossing, a pedestrian crossing.
In Campagny
Luca, after searching through all his pockets, of which he had many, finally came across a hairpin belonging to his mother which he thought would do the job.
Yes! He had the little key and placed it carefully in an impression on a rock, struggling a little as to the exact position, and then immediately there was a feeling of falling through sudden darkness, his stomach dropping away into space.
He was in the granite mountain, at the mouth of a cave. He looked out to see a similar yet familiar landscape. The mountain must have moved due to the gradual shifting of tectonic plates. They had gone back a long way through time to find such a pristine landscape. Everywhere was green, growing, the mountain itself cultivating dwellings like outcroppings.
A very green parrot flew in a soft colourful arc to a perch near his head. It tried a few different languages before it came upon English and sensed his recognition of his mother tongue. "Who are you?", it asked then, and waited in patient repose, studying him with its small shining bead of an eye, its head cocked, expecting an answer, as if it was a simple question.
My course finished today, so sad to leave my lovely cohesive, kind group of 7 artists of unique and varied styles, so interesting and inspirational to be in a studio, all creating away for 5 full long days. I wish it could have gone on for another week at least.
I feel that I learned more in this week than I have in most other courses. Such a good good teacher, Patrick Carter.
At the beginning of the course, when he was introducing himself, he said that he wanted to get to know each one of us, and I thought, "yeah, yeah, I've heard that one before."
But he really did, he cared about each person, gleaned information from us and remembered it, used it to inform him of our strengths as artists, knew when to challenge, when to criticize, when to encourage. One of the finest teachers I have ever encountered.
My art has moved into a different realm due to him. I was so stagnant, and now I am raring to go again. But first I must go to bed.
So this is Myra looking pensive.
In Campagny
He checked again. Nothing that he could see.
He felt all around it. He even did a handstand to observe upside down, in case it was the wrong way around. And as he balanced easily on his hands, he noticed something.
In a tiny split in the flowerstalk, like the one the she-mantis makes in which to lay her eggs, was a small brass key, the one he had been looking for.
But how to get it out without damaging the small plant. He had large banana fingers, or so he had been told, although he had never in his life seen a banana.
But he had to get through, he had to see Norena Skull-engraver again.
He looked around him. The mountain looked back greyly. (to be continued each day for the rest of the year)
Our boys turned 18 today. (taken from Tim's flickr page)
Nicholas and Matthew, who, if I'd had my way, would have been Forest and River. Tim wouldn't let me call them that, for which they are probably eternally grateful.
When Emma was a baby I wanted to call her Paloma, but my mother advised against it, telling me that she would be nicknamed "Polony" at school, and I took her advice, for once.
The little boys decided it was time to be born on Emma's 13th birthday, but as they had only spent 33 weeks in the broiler, drugs were administered to stop the contractions and keep them there. However, the nearest city hospital which could cope with all this was 120km away, and I was not allowed to go home until they were born, which took another long, lonely month!
Eventually Nicholas kicked open his sac and amniotic fluid gushed out, so an emergency C-section was done, as they were both breach babies, spooning together. I was able to call Tim before I was rushed into surgery, but as it was about 11.45 at night, he had to organise for Stephen to come and stay with the sleeping daughters, and then drive all the way down to Port Elizabeth. After about 85km of hurtling down the empty freeway on an adrenaline high, he started feeling rather odd, so stopped the car to stretch his legs and found his mind stretching too, as he could have sworn he saw the stars wheeling in the firmament!
There were two little boys already born when he arrived, and he was allowed in to see them in their incubators. It was hospital policy to put every premature baby in an incubator for the first day, even if they were fine, which the boys were, weighing in at 3.2kg (Mattie the fattie), and 2.8kg (Nick the little pickle). So Tim sits down and puts one hand on each little back, bonding with his sons. He comes to see me again, as I was not doing so well after the surgery, and then rushes back to the babies, taking up the same position. After a few minutes a nurse comes over and says, "Sir, that is not your baby, another baby girl came in after you left, there is your other little boy." (So there is an 18 year old girl somewhere wondering where her real father is, the one she bonded with straight after birth).
The first night we brought them home, Tim was so avidly handing me babies every time they cried, that eventually, in my milk-sodden stupour, I asked desperately, pathetically, "How many are there?" It felt as though I was breast-feeding an entire orphanage of babies!
And so they grew and grew into these two utterly different people, but with that shared connection, an alliance which will never be broken. As Emma said, "They've known one another 9 months longer than anyone else has known them".
When they were 8 and a half years old we brought them over to America, where we thought they would have a better future. I really expected people to love us immediately, but have found my best friends to be fellow South Africans, in fact. The boys have borne the brunt of anti-foreigner feelings here and there, but if you can survive such experiences it keeps your spirit intact and makes you a stronger person. They both still think of themselves as South African.
Our Nicholas has eyes like the sky, is a sensitive boy, full of art and music and poetry and singing and passion. His outbursts get him into trouble sometimes (I wonder where he gets that attribute from). Also brimming with charm and carrying a twinkle in his eye like his great-gramp.
Our Matthew has eyes like grey clouds, is also a sweet sensitive boy, brilliant at ceramics, and in possession of a wonderful scientific mind and powers of recall, slow to anger and quick to understand, a lot like his father. He is also charming with a wicked sense of humour and has reduced me to tears of laughter many times.
So thanks to my laatlammetjies for eighteen years of learning about more love than I knew I had, loving two more babies (at the same time), and finding that I was "as strong as a russian bull" (according to the little boys) because I could carry them both at the same time when necessary.
These boys have taught me about boys (how weird they are :-)), which has informed my tolerance as a teacher. They make me laugh, they make my life happy, I look forward to seeing them every day.
I said to Tim the other day, "What are we going to do when the boys have gone off to college? I am going to be so sad." And he replied, "Won't I be enough?" And I didn't answer him.
I forgot to photograph my work today, so here is another picture Tim took of them blowing out their candles on my usual messy cake creation - cobbled together with icing, bits and pieces here and there!
First the girls and then the little boys had to endure questions from their friends about their strange birthday cakes - weird birds and odd-looking dragons, fashioned together with bits of cake which had fallen apart when taken out of the pans, pieces cut up and stuck together creatively with green and purple icing, with smarties for decorations.
I should not be a baker, the name of the recipe I used tonight is Infallible Chocolate Cake!
I miss my meadow but I am loving the course. I love my fellow travellers on the week's mixed media journey, I love the teacher, Patrick, who is always excited by art in all its forms, and is a genuinely warm human being who is friendly towards everyone, from the dour Museum guards to the 5-year old twins who live next door to him. I love the paper we use, the chalk pastels, the thick black pencils, the colour, the line, the smudging wondrous idea of making a blank page full of the image of a person, the person sitting just there across from you. I love the models for being brave to do this work.
Today I spent the entire day on a large drawing of a man. He was a beautiful model, with a grounded energy and confident sense of self, compared with the skinny rather introverted male model of Monday's drawing day. I think he inspired everyone somehow, because we all did good work today. He is a yoga teacher and masseur.
He is not perfectly in proportion but I got the essence of the man, I think.
The chalk pastel is a wonderful medium, I have just discovered it, never really used it before.
I caught an earlier train today and Tim met me at the station and we had a brief respite between other Things that have to be done. So we went for an ice-cream, which we ate sitting on the bench outside the ice-cream place, with the late light spreading its beneficent glow around us. We told of our days, him ferrying boys and fighting with Leo, the person who sold us the dud car. I told how there is a Fransiscan priest in our group, which seems like a strange kind of thing for a Catholic priest to be doing.
Tim asked me what the point of drawing naked people is, and I have been thinking a lot about that. I think it is because this is the purest form of a person, and if you want to draw people you have to know all their ins and outs, the way their muscles hold up their limbs, the way skin sags or tightens, the planes of the body and the face. And every time you draw anything, including the human body, you are struck by beauty. The beauty of shadows, of long fingers and stubby toes, of breasts with large round nipples, of a penis sitting on its testicle-nest, of the light captured in a pony-tail of brown hair, of wrinkles and ankles and the weirdness of elbows.
So here is another pastel portrait of Leah, looking as though she is sitting on the edge of a swimming pool.
There will probably be no running this week as I leave at 6.45am and get home at 8pm, happily exhausted. I am doing a mixed media course, designed to combine painting and drawing and perhaps other media like collage.
Today in true art school fashion, the model did not appear at the scheduled time and people kept arriving late, so that we finally got started at about 10am, with people from the class volunteer models. This was a beautiful little asian student named Claire.
At 11am, the original model arrived, as did the substitute who had been called by the lecturer. So we had a male and female model all day. It was lovely. I did a pastel drawing of the woman which turned out quite well, I have hardly ever done pastels before.
And I drew a naked male other than my husband. I think it is the first time I have ever drawn a nude male stranger from life. When I was at Art school the black women models had to take off everything but the men wore little undies, always. It is an odd thing at first, to gaze at a man's penis and draw it, it is so out there. The male genitals are such a secret hidden thing in western culture. In movies, women were showing their all long long before the first penis ever made an appearance.
Our teacher/lecturer is wonderful, full of energy and enthusiasm and constantly coming around to offer advice and criticism, and praise.
Frank, the old Italian man who is my friend's neighbour.
He has green thumbs. Plants try to grow better, taller and greener or rounder or more colourful, when he is tending them.
My dad was like that. He grew all kinds of plants, his vegetable garden always full to overflowing, with green beans and golden carrots, little new potatoes we ate with butter and salt and pepper, broccoli florets like green crowns, and round crisp lettuce that he saved from the slugs and snails with many methods, some natural plantings, other methods involving squishing them himself.
For colour there were the tall, scent-filled sweetpeas, one of which made it into the Cape Times as a record for the sweetpea with the most blossoms on one stalk! Fragrant jasmine climbed high for him, and roses that my sister gave him flourished and bloomed each year. Lemons, figs, mulberries and guavas we had in abundance. And at his last house he grew a kind of Frankenstein apple tree which could have been out of a fairy tale. It grew in strange shapes, because it was made up entirely of grafts, and consequently the tree produced about 7 different types of apples!
My dad was a collector. His garage (and shed) were filled to capacity with things he might need one day. Many of his generation went through great hardships which formed thrifty pragmatic people.
His heart also had a great aptitude for kindness. He would fix fridges for old ladies and barely charge them, he would always say yes when asked for help, and even before the asking, my father was there with his large helping hands, his strong arms, the considerable bulk of the big man, able to set things right. He was, of course, also cantankerous, obstreperous, stubborn and many of his grandchildren nicknamed him "Grumpa", but they all admired and loved him none the less, forgiving him his faults because of his goodness.
Tonight I was sorting out all the materials I need for the Painting and Drawing course I am attending from tomorrow, and found an old moonbag in a drawer, which contained these treasures.
I too am a collector like my dad, some for beauty, others for possible uses. The Eucalyptus pod still whistles beautifully when I hold it with my two thumbs in a certain way and blow like my dad taught me, The acorn may well germinate one day under the lesser green thumb I inherited. The shells are beautiful to look at, the sewing machine foot a useful object (if I still had that sewing machine). The hook can still be used, I think it came from 16 Cross Street, and the pod is from one of my beloved Grahamstown jacarandas, and seeds from this pod have grown into four delicate tall trees standing in pots in my house.
The friendly little tractor with Evil Plough dragging him down....
I trudge-ran 2km then ran two more fairly easily with more lift in my steps. 4km in 30 minutes. Hot humid air around my breathing mouth. My own spit added to the globs from the spittle-bugs. Sweat dripping down my eyebrows, painful ankles. Desperate cottontail dash across my path. Horsefly trying to bite me. You are not at all beautiful after a run.
I wonder if funerals are pleasing to the dead. It is something important, to memorialise someone, but the one being memorialised has no say in it, usually. I suppose there are some people who plan their own services, and I think that is a good idea.
I would like to be buried in a cardboard box with an oak tree planted on top of me. (That is my second-favourite tree. An Erythrena is my best, but they can't live in New England.)
All the people I know and love (not very many in this country) must each bring a poem or a song to sing, and it would be lovely if all these were about trees, but they are free to choose something they like too. The service would take place out in the open, in a meadow, or the woods, even if it is snowing.
Then everyone can retire to a good place, a big tent if it is summer, or a warm house if it is winter, and eat, drink and be merry. Every person there must tell one funny story about me that will make everyone laugh.
Then everyone must go home and have sex, make love, whatever you want to call it, with their wife or husband or lover, because what's a good death without being rounded off with the primal life-urge?
The perfect end to a nasty week - I arrived home to an empty house (Molly and Lily and Piggie would have to disagree with that statement), having dropped the boys off at various teenager groups, and Tim away on a hiking trip, to find a big pile of Molly's vomit. At least it was on the kitchen floor. I nearly took a photograph of it because it was such an interesting shape, all the grass had clumped together in the form of a toad!
I don't think I have ever spent a week with so much time spent driving a car or sitting in the passenger seat with someone else driving, like Tim or Nick or Matthew. Matthew actually drove all the way home from his internship at Tufts yesterday, a distance of about 28 miles, merging on to highways and all! I think mothers and fathers who teach their children to drive are very brave.
But unfortunately Tim and I are a bit useless with making deals. We always seem to get hoodwinked, deceived. They just see us coming, "Look, it's those suckers again, how can we trick them this time!"
So, after days and days of searching online for a car for the boys' 18th birthday, we finally bought one, a little old Subaru wagon from Leo in Medford, with a sun-roof that you wind up, and a roof-rack for the kayaks, and plenty of space for friends. We spent the whole of Wednesday sorting out registration and insurance etc. and then hid the car at a friend's house.
Today the little car went in to see about the shuddering which had happened after Leo engaged the all-wheel-drive. Tim compared it to getting Molly, who seemed like a sweet dog. The woman who was selling her to us said goodbye and as she was leaving, put her head back around the door to say, "Oh, and by the way, she has epileptic seizures, but nothing too bad!".
So friendly Captain Stan of the neighbourhood garage showed me the underneath of the car this afternoon, and it is rather a mess, with oil leaks and various important metal frame parts of the chassis so rusted that you can put your hand through the holes in some places, making the car actually quite dangerous to drive. It will cost about $5000 to fix, and is not worth it! I felt rather devastated.
But he did helpfully point out to me that we are covered under the Lemon Aid Law of Massachusetts (what a wonderful name), which makes it illegal for people to sell you such cars.
In addition to the Lemon Aid Law requirements, a private party who sells a consumer a used vehicle must tell the buyer about any known use or safety defects. If the buyer discovers a defect which impairs the safety or substantially impairs the use of the vehicle, and can prove the seller knew about it, then the buyer can return the vehicle within 30 days of purchase. Private parties are bound by this law, regardless of the age or selling price of the vehicle.
I think we may have a fight on our hands though, to get that money back from Leo, who has in all likelihood, spent all the money already. It is incomprehensible how people can be so blatantly crooked. I know all the members of his family, how his wife might be deployed to Afghanistan, how his daughter looked at her 8th grade graduation the other day. He knows that I too have four children, that the car is for my twin sons who are turning 18. How could he sell me a death-trap?
So I parked the car in our driveway this afternoon, and tearfully told each boy the whole story. They both had a sudden terrible thought that I was going to tell them we were getting divorced, but then thought, "No, never Mom and Dad". Matthew was very sweet when I told him how stupid we felt, he said, "You guys are not stupid, it's because you are so nice." Well, it's all very well to be nice, but to allow yourself to be taken advantage of is just dumb, isn't it? And Nick was enraged at the audacity of said Leo, how dare this man do this to his parents!
So, off to my lonely bed tonight. This image is of a quilt that I designed and made for Emma for her 30th birthday last year. A 'tarental'.
Molly-the-dog on the hot hot hot Midsummer Day today, (90F, 32C, 40% humidity), after running 3.25km with me. Although she did cheat, flopping down in the shade of the big old oak at the beginning of Heartbreak Hill each circuit, then watching for me to come all the way around the meadow, then happily loping across the ploughed field and falling into step behind me, pretending she had been there all the time! But I knew, because I couldn't hear that pant pant pant behind me, now could I?
I was wet with perspiration, red-faced, with my heart singing in my ears when we arrived home, breathing noisily. Molly flopped down on the cool tiled floor and panted the staccato of the aria Der Holle Rache from The Magic Flute
Last night was St John's Eve, who is, I read today, the patron saint of beekeepers, although when I looked on the Catholic site, apparently St Ambrose and St Bernard of Clairvaux are the real patron saints of beekeeping.
There are literally thousands of saints, and each one assigned to be the patron of someone, like St Felicity, the patron saint of Barren Women, who was martyred by being thrown by a cow and then pierced by the sword of a gladiator in 203 A.D. St Jude Thaddeus is the patron saint of Desperate Situations. The patron saint of Stomach Disorders is St Timothy. My favourite is St Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of animals and ecology.
I am also partial to St John, or John the Baptist. I fell in love with Rodin's statue of him, and when I met Tim he looked just like that, and he was a baptist when he was young. So I have my very own John the Baptist!
I love the whole idea of water being such a symbol for John the Baptist. There are water festivals all over Catholic South America, decorations of fountains and wells, and St John presides over all this magical water.
Yesterday I ran just over 2km but had to shorten it for a variety of reasons, the chief one being that it was so hot, and also that my husband was at home, waiting for his supper, not that he can't make his own supper, in fact we ate his wonderful omelettes tonight, but he was tired and is a good, hardworking man and I wanted to spend some time with him.
Today was a strange one, full of driving and standing in queues and worrying if we were doing the right thing, and finally accomplishing this big secret thing for the boys' birthday next Thursday. But oh, what a day!
When the boys were about three they learned "Twinkle, twinkle, little star" and would stand and sing it together for anyone who wanted to listen. After being asked for the umpteenth time, they stood to sing it, and after two perfect lines, Nick changed the next two lines to "What a day, oh what a day!" So it became a refrain in our family when anyone had had a tough day.
Today reminded me of the melodrama of family life. Tim took Nick off to work this morning, a 25 minute trip, and I went for a long meander through the wonderful milkweed-full fields, with bees bobbing and butterflies fluttering, robins singing and last night's welcome raindrops still clinging to each leaf and grass-stalk. At about the time I expected Tim back, as he had taken the day off, my cellphone rang in my pocket, Nick, to ask where I was, as he needed a ride home, had got the schedules all mixed up! So Tim had to turn straight back around and fetch him, a car-ride which had taken him nearly two hours by the end of it!
And then we were off! I asked my very kind friend to take Nick to work at the Y in the afternoon, as I knew Tim and I wouldn't be back from our errands by then. We rushed up and down route 1 to try to accomplish various objectives, and at about 3.30 Matthew phoned my cell to ask if I knew when there was a commuter-rail train, but also to tell me that his phone had died! So it all seemed impossible and I told him to wait for me, that I would be there in about 45 minutes.
Hectic planning between Tim and I and finally I was nearly at the destination, listening carefully to the GPS system telling me how to get there, driving in rush-hour traffic, in Tim's stick-shift car, and my cellphone rings! Now changing gears while talking on a cell leads to disjointed conversation, to say the least. It was my daughter in England, asking me where on earth I was, as she had been trying to get hold of me. When I asked how she was she burst into tears and cried out that someone had died! Shocked, struggling to maintain the gear I was in and keep going up a narrow hilly road in the middle of the busy town, I asked, "Who died?" and she repeated, "Don't die, Mom!" And then I realised what she was saying and why, as her friend's mother is dying, and I just managed to say, "You'll be alright, I promise I'm not planning to die any time soon, Em!" and my phone died!
There was more rushing up and down highways in order to get people to their requisite destinations, and at last there was just Tim and I sitting on the deck drinking beer, with the black happy Molly-dog and the frail elderly Lily-cat lying at our feet. "What-a-day, Oh-what-a-day!"
It reminded me of a moment at 16 Cross Street, in about 1996, with me standing at the open door, Emma's boyfriend on the other side of the metal-barred gate, distraught, Emma pulling on my arm, telling me that I had to take him in, he had to live with us because he had had a huge fight with his parents who had "thrown him out". Me standing there indecisive, not knowing really what to do, when four-year old Matthew comes up to me stark naked, (Nick behind him as his wingman, wearing only a superman cape), and tells me in no uncertain terms, that they are "never bathing again!" There was also a dog barking, if I recall correctly, three cats slipping in and out around my ankles, miaowing for their supper, and loud music coming from Jessica's room. What-a-day, Oh, what-a-day!
This person was driving with a big white animal, which I surmised to be a Pyrenean Mountain Dog. We were behind them for ages, trailing along in that terrible Boston rush-hour traffic, the dog's hair blowing softly like grass.
But when we finally went by, the dog turned into a large white stuffed animal of an indistinct species! I was shocked. It seemed to me that they were driving with something dead. Why would anyone want to drive in a car with a large white long-haired toy strapped into the passenger seat next to them?
People are cleaning oil-soaked animals with Dawn, which is apparently the best detergent for the job, because it is very hard on oil but soft on the animals' skin. Dawn has a secret recipe, but what is odd is that one-seventh of the liquid is made up of petroleum!
I wish they would stop pointing fingers and just get on with stopping the oil from gushing into the gulf. In America, there always seems to have to be someone to blame. So much litigation involves blaming and a payout. When we went to South Africa two years ago, at one place we stayed there was a big dam (which would be called a pond here). On the other side of the dam was a tall rockface, and attached to this rock wall, about 35 feet up, was a zipline or foofy-slide. So, in order to use and enjoy this, you had to swim across the dam, climb up the cliff, then stand on a natural rock platform next to a beehive in an old tree-trunk, and launch yourself off to drop into the water at the best-judged time.
We all went on this ziplock, it was absolutely thrilling, but while Nick was waiting on his 5th or 6th turn, he was stung by one of the bees just below his eyebrow! He ran over to Matthew who was about to launch himself, grabbed the handle and leapt! Of course he hadn't given himself enough time to get a proper grip and so very quickly he lost the handle and plummeted down, about 25 feet, to land "SMACK" on his back in the water! I immediately started swimming over to where he had surfaced but he gestured to me to leave him, as he had winded himself and was waiting until he could breathe properly again.
His back was covered in red welts, with bruising later, his eye swelled up for about 3 days, poor boy, but no one was to blame but ourselves. We didn't sue the little farm, we just sorted him out with anti-histamines for the swelling, and arnica cream for the bruises, and tea and sympathy for the psychological wounds. It had been a little accident, and that's what accidents are, they happen quite often in our day to day lives, particularly with children.
So with the oil, it doesn't really matter in the long run who is to blame, just fix it, please! The future of the ocean rests on decisions made by these finger-pointing idiots. Take some money away from our bloated military if you haven't enough. Bring the soldiers home from Afghanistan and Iraq, and those futile Vietnam-type wars. But put everything you have into this effort, it is of the utmost urgency, nothing else matters as much as this.
One of the beautiful and odd-looking creatures of our oceans. A leafy sea-dragon, of the sea-horse family, the only animal where the male 'gives birth' to the young.
The first day of vacation.
6.00am - Drag myself out of bed, after 5 hours of hot sleep.
6.10am - wake Matthew, make coffee for him, make packed lunches for Matthew and Tim
7.15am - take Matt to school to write his last exam.
7.30am - take Molly for walk, pick dandelion leaves, clover and soft grass for piggie.
7.50am - feed piggie, birds. (black dog-bird gets two peanuts too)
8.30am - take all textbooks that I've rounded up to school, because if they don't have them the boys won't get their results, won't be able to apply for colleges, their lives will be ruined.
8.36am - write check for $90 for Matthew's Maths textbook! He negotiates $60 payment to me.
8.37am - drive Matthew to Tufts Tissue Laboratory in Medford, a distance of about 27 miles.
9.30am - go to see car for possible acquisition, in Malden, owned by the friend of a Chinese man who seems very suspicious of me, although I should be suspicious of him!
10.30am - another car in Medford, slightly better, a possibility.
10.55am - start driving to Ipswich Country Club to pick up Nick, about 30 miles. On the way I have to stop at a store so that I can go to the toilet, because by now I am fairly desperate! The desperation which causes eyes to water once you finally get to sit down.'
12.05pm - drive into the setting for The Stepford Wives, alias the Ipswich Country Club, to fetch Nick, turn the wrong way down the parking lot and my old hippie Odyssey, full of bumper-stickers lauding peace and goodwill and calling on people to Make ART, not WAR, almost has a head-on collision with a brassy little strumpet-like sports car, a blonde woman driving (the correct way) and giving me snooty looks.
12.10pm - Nick gets into the car and we drive off. He tells me about his morning's work as a lifeguard and swim-coach, how he noticed a dear little girl sitting in the shallow end on the step with her mother who was not paying any attention to her, and how she was just laughing with the delight of the water, just loving it spilling over her legs, her hands, just living in the pleasure-filled moment.
Somehow we get on to the subject of growing up, of women's lives, and I mention how I am not so fond of summer anymore, because of the hot flushes attendant to menopause, which seem to be brought on by heat itself. I just get nice and cozy in bed and suddenly I want to strip off every layer of clothing or sheet or duvet otherwise I will surely die of heat! Or now, in summer, being hot makes me hotter, it is extremely irritating! Nick sympathizes but is very happy to be a male, although he points out that every single man will have problems with his prostate after 60. It seems a fairly small thing to deal with compared to the legion of suffering women must go through. And I pontificate on this, how we must menstruate, sometimes with a lot of pain involved, then we get pregnant, then we must give birth, painful, laborious, arduous birth! Then as we get older we get to lose our looks, quicker than men because of having children, and then to crown it all, we go through menopause, and it's all downhilll from there!
12.40pm - arrive home, finally, to fetch Nick's checks and drive him back to the bank to deposit them, then to Magnolia Beach.
1.30pm - home, grab a bite to eat, a cup of tea. Sit and watch the birds.
2.20pm - phone Jess on skype.
2.45pm - phone Emma on her new landline.
3.10pm - have conversation with mother of son's friend who is sitting in her car in our driveway waiting for said son.
3.25pm - drive down to Medford again to fetch Matthew. Have long and interesting conversation about tissue engineering utilising silk as a scaffold for manufacturing blood vessels from stem cells. Have another interesting conversation about Shwayze, another pathetic male rapper with no respect for women. (How can they like this music?) Matthew backs down from my passionate outpourings. He has heard me many times before. He knows me.
5.30pm - stop in at Market Basket to get meat for Molly and milk and lettuce, and a few other things that one always seems to notice a need for.
6.00pm - arrive home, unpack groceries, boys phone friends.
6.10pm - back in car taking boys to friends' houses (different friends, different houses).
6.33pm - home, put Molly's meat on to cook.
7.05pm - go for 5km run in the very great heat. Molly gives up after one km.
7.45pm - running down the hill at the end of the run, nearly at home, I have a spectacular fall worthy of a World Cup Soccer match, as I land on hands, then hip, then knee, and then flip over on to my back and slide, hurtling on the sled of pine needles until I come to a stop with my head a few inches from a large pine trunk.
7.46pm - get up gingerly, dust myself off, congratulate all my bones for not breaking, and go in to shower.
7.55pm - Tim comes home, we eat, I feed the dog, I feed the cat, we watch an episode of "Life" which is amazing cinematographically, but with a very irritating anthropomorphising narration voiced by Oprah Winfrey.
And now I am going to bed! Roll on, boys' licenses!
This is a portrait I did at a course last June at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, in Boston. I am doing another course next week, where I get to become a student again, painting from 9 - 6 every day for a whole week! I can't wait!
She is standing on the railing of the deck, cheeky. Funny creatures these.
Today is Fathers' Day, when westerners celebrate fathers. My father was an amazing chap. He loved his children with an enduring uncomplicated love. We were, each one of the three of us, the apple of his eye. (Apples were sacred in early Britain, and the pupil of the eye was called the apple, so saying that someone is the apple of your eye means that they are as precious as sight, and also precious and sacred to you.) Which is how he loved us.
He was also a cantankerous man, even when still quite young, and grew more curmudgeonly with age, but for us three he was always a rock, always, always willing to help, there with a shoulder to cry on, an ear to listen, a helping hand.
I remember how safe he was. I have never since felt so utterly safe as I felt with my father when I was a child. He was big and strong with huge hands, a fixer of machinery, a mover of heavy objects, a striding person in the world. And yet sensitive to nuances of emotion. He would surprise you with what he had observed when you thought you were hiding it so well.
I think he probably had attention deficit disorder (ADD), which of course wasn't even heard of when he attended a little village school in rural England, in the 1920's. He was a self-made man, struggling with learning disorders, and with my mother's quick brain to help him, he managed to haul himself up in the world and attained a comfortable middle and old age. Of course he was a flawed human being, as are we all, but for integrity and steadfastness you couldn't beat my dad. He died nearly three years ago, and I still miss that love and unfaltering loyalty, still miss his voice on the phone saying, "Oh hello, little Annepan," with such genuine happiness in his voice. Even though I was in my 50's, I was still his baby, his laatlammetjie.
Even though my father grew up in an extremely patriarchal society he raised his daughters the same as his son, pushing us to succeed, never giving us the slightest idea that we could not be anything we wanted to be. He also would probably have liked us to be more conventional women, but he was a good man and let us be our individual selves, even encouraged it, perhaps without always meaning to.
But there are so many bad fathers out there, that I struggle to understand why god is portrayed as a man, a father. The older I become the more I am shocked by how much evil in the world is perpetrated by men.
I like the Hindu idea of many different gods and goddesses, each with a unique personality and human foibles, each representing something of our complex human nature. Gods in our own image. Jealous gods, duplicitous gods, loving gods, mean gods, silly gods, good gods.
Today I drew a picture of my friend's daughter and grand-daughter as a gift for her birthday.
She runs 4.14km in 32 minutes, at the end of the hot hot day, running through the meadow, the half-moon following her trail, the cool breeze bathing her flushed face, her long braid dividing its time between her elbows, brushing each one in turn as it raises in time with the opposite leg.
The child lives every day in the moment, whether it be summer or winter. Here it is, sunshine, hot! Beach day, riding in the back of the station wagon with her best friend, lying in the dogbox the whole way home, telling secrets, giggling, singing songs they love, perfectly in harmony, their voices and their beings. Or here it is, rain, cold wind. Foggy mountain shrouded, wet socks at school, misery riding her bike home, hot cocoa made especially for her by her dad, the best cocoa in the world, sweetened with honey. She doesn't really compare seasons, or notice time passing, she just wakes up each morning and does all the lovely things, reading and eating good food, riding her bike and playing with her friend, and the not so wonderful things, going to school, homework, fighting with her brother. She just can't wait for the summer holidays, and they go on forever, and she cries each January 15th or 16th when she has to go back to school, that first day is always the saddest day of her life.
Now, in her 55th year, she is utterly aware of time passing, she notes the seasons, is always conscious of the hours in the day, not being enough, going too fast, how just a little while ago she had twin babies and now they are almost eighteen years old. She washes the muddy pond-water off the dog with the hose, gets willingly sopping wet when the dog shakes herself, panting and looking like a black seal. She is happily barefoot and bare-armed in the summer heat, and is astonished at the memory of the water being stiff and hard inside the hose just a few months ago, snow and ice where there is now abundant green, weeds and leaves and growth everywhere, when just yesterday, it seems, she had to put on a hundred layers just to venture outside for her daily run or walk in sub-zero temperatures.
She remembers that it is Father's Day tomorrow, her husband's 26th. She met him when her girls were little, they taught at the same school, Nombulelo. He was just a boy, 24 years old, and lovely. They became friends.
How he won her heart, without her even realising it, was one day when she was very sick with a bad cold. At school he told her that she should go straight to bed when she got home. She turned on him angrily, saying, "How am I supposed to go to bed with two little girls to take care of?", but when she arrived home she did actually lie on her bed, feeling awful, after telling her daughters to play quietly. She must have fallen asleep when Emma came in to cheerfully tell her that Tim had arrived and was playing with them. She slept gratefully as Emma periodically came into the bedroom to inform her that Tim had given them their tea, then that Tim had given them supper, then that Tim was seeing to their bath, then he came in to tell her that he was having trouble with Jessica's nappy, because every time he stood her up it fell down around her ankles! So she went in and they all laughed and she showed him how to do it properly, and then flopped back into bed, and as she drifted off to sleep she could hear him reading them a story, and the next thing she knew it was early morning and Jess and Emma had crawled into bed with her sometime during the night, and she was all better!
Sometime later in the year, they got together as a couple. Although they could never just be a couple, because there were two little girls involved. So he said that the three of them made up his "package deal". How lucky they all were to find him, this man who restored their faith in men.
And much much later they had two more babies at the same time! And always, since his commitment all that time ago, he has been the best dad, loving each one, always ready with patience, with sympathy and understanding, with laughter, with a glass of water when they are weeping (which is his cure for crying and most of the time actually works). Reading long books like Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter aloud each night for years, writing and illustrating stories for them, watching videos with them, explaining the plot when they didn't understand, teaching them to swim in the pool and the sea, teaching them Maths, teaching them all how to ride a bike, how to drive a car, how to live in the world.
So here is an image of his strong arms around all of them, his arms that grew bigger and bigger as needed, and are still growing. Happy Father's Day!
I didn't run today because I had to spend the day at school, doing last orders, cleanup, etc. But I did go for a fairly long walk with the black dog, quite early this morning.
Molly rushed off ahead of me along the path into the forest, running to the ball tree where she waits trembling with anticipation. I walked more slowly, when suddenly I felt someone watching me.
Looking in the direction from which I could feel the stare emanating, I saw a young doe, about 25 feet away from me, stock-still, gazing at me, trying to determine how much of a threat I was. She had large velvet ears trained on the air like satellite dishes, a narrow pretty face, large brown eyes scrutinizing me. Standing on her silent legs, ready, alert, waiting.
Eventually I decided to get my camera out to take a photograph, but she was too shy for that and, turning, she moved off unhurriedly, but out of range before I could get the camera ready. And I thought how important it is to live in the moment, sometimes NOT to record it. Taking photographs means that you are always looking at everything as a possible subject. I had thought how I would show Tim how close the animal had been to me. I had thought how beautiful she would look in the photograph, through the green morning leaves. I thought how amazing it would have been if she had been a wild horse instead of a deer. Horses are definitely more mysteriously beautiful than deer. But deer remind me a bit of horses, so skittish and delicately powerful. Nevertheless, I spoiled it somehow, spoiled my perception of the experience.
Like other technological accessories that we are hooked up to at any given moment of the day, cameras have taken over our lives as well. The new generation is the most photographed generation ever, because cameras are relatively cheap. Also, it is so easy to take a million pictures, you don't have to think about the cost of film or developing, you just upload them to your computer and there you go! So on every computer is a glut of images which are bad, blurred, poor in composition, over-exposed, under-exposed. All taking up space on our hard drives, and taking up space in our heads too. And it takes far too much time to go patiently through them and delete the majority, just keep the beauties.
No longer do we have carefully wrought photograph albums with dates and captions under images to pore over on a rainy Saturday afternoon, Two little girls sharing a towel, remembering beach days feeding the rockpool fish with crushed periwinkles, Cousins at the swimming pool, and the feeling of the chlorinated water in the bright sunny swimming-pool of the cousins, where we swam underwater and tried to understand the garbled words the water made for our mouths and ears. Pop and Granny at Christmas, and I am back at 10 Forest Drive, hot and bothered adult women in the kitchen, children playing french cricket in the back garden, even Pop joining in on occasion, with his shy smile. And great aunts and uncles that we barely knew, just saw in photographs, although one, Auntie Phyllis, was a character alright, changing her name by deed poll to her lover's surname when his wife would not divorce him. They lived happily together for years and years, at a time when that was definitely frowned upon.
One such photograph I have pored over is this one. My parents before they were even married, just two beautiful young people brought together by the Second World War. With their whole 64 years of marriage ahead of them, a lifetime.
My dad was always touching my mother, hugging her, putting his arm around her, even nabbing a quick feel of her breast. In just about every picture that we have of them together, they are close, drawn in to one another. He loved her in a very physical way, right up until she died.
The run was 4.7km, a long uncomfortable struggle. The black dog loping along behind, panting, panting, loud rasping in the muggy air. After three days without a run, the joints refused to oil themselves, ankles, knees, all the many bones of the feet, all seemed to be aching. And still are.
After three km, I found I had slowed down so much that I was just trudging along, barely running. So I picked up the pace for the last couple of rounds. Psychologically I do really well in the last circuit, because I know it is nearly the end, so my body is happy for my mind to push it, because it knows the end is in sight, rather like riding a horse. They're always faster on the home stretch.
As the mother of four, I am convinced that children are born with their own characters. Emma has always been right out there with her emotions. She has always let you know exactly where you stand, what she feels. Jess was entirely different, she observed, she thought about things.
One evening the murderous hunter cat Rumpleteaser brought a rat inside. The girls managed to distract the cat and rescue the rat and then refused to allow Tim to kill it. So, being the good father that he was, (and almost always allowing his girls to wrap him around their little fingers), and even though the rat looked wounded, he captured it in a bucket and released it in the furthest corner of our garden. About half an hour later Tim noticed that the rat was back kind of butting into the wall of our house, obviously brain-damaged and suffering. The girls were horrified to hear us discuss and agree on the fact that the rat needed to be put out of its misery, that he was actually going to kill it!.
Emma raged against us, pleaded with us, even suggesting that we take the rat to the vet to fix it! She cried and shouted and eventually was sent to her room to calm down. And then it was bedtime, and everyone settled down, there were explanations, reasonings, acceptance.
Later, Tim and I went up to bed ourselves, and at the top of the stairs, Jess had carefully placed her statement, their little easel-blackboard, and in careful chalk writing, I love rats.
Tonight, a little drawing of one of the daisy survivors of Evil Plough, who now lives happily in my garden.
Girl and spray.
Boston Tea Party Ride at Canobie Lake Park.
A lovely day with grades 6 and 7 at the roller-coaster park. Roller-coasters probably relieve stress, you can scream your heart out, feel that adrenalin rush and the endorphins that follow. For me, teaching Matthew and Nick to drive is scary enough.
Another auspicious day, another daughter's birthday today! 28 years old, good grief! So again, thoughts of this child all day, thoughts of her birth, and all the years of her growing up into the strong passionate woman she is now.
Jessica - my second daughter. She was not keen to be born, this one, so she was induced, (which makes for a rather painful labour) and when she at last slid out into the world, 4.3 kg fat, looking like a little old man, in that strange squished-face way of all newborns, my heart just expanded with love, an almost physical feeling. I told my mother how astonished I had been, that I could love another person as much as I loved Emma, that we have this amazing capacity. Of course she knew about that already.
The nurses said, "Ag shame, another little girl. Well, maybe you'll get a boy next time." but I was thrilled with my little girl, I had not even contemplated a boy.
When Jess was only six weeks old I had to go back to teaching, at Jongilanga High School, which was about 25km out of East London at Kwelerha, in the middle of the bush. I expressed a little milk at each feed so that there would be enough for a couple of bottles for the baby while I was away at school, as I had to leave her with the sweet nanny Eunice, on whose ample back the little baby spent most of her day while I was not there. As soon as I returned home I would greet the 3 year old Emma with lots of kisses and hugs, give her something nice to do next to me, and then take the usually pretty hungry Jess and sit down with her to feed her. I remember us staring into one another's eyes, euphoric, animalistic, both creatures in need of one another, the bond secure again.
When Jess was about 3 months old I took her to the doctor because I was afraid she was retarded. All she did was drink and sleep and smile. (Emma had required 24 hour service to her desires, from birth, and I had willingly provided everything, with great devotion and love.) The doctor reassured me that this was how babies were supposed to behave and that I was actually very lucky to have such a baby.
We were at the Rhodes pool one hot Grahamstown day when Jess was nearly two and a half years old. She ran along the smooth wet concrete that surrounded the pool, slipped and fell flat on her back, hitting her head hard. I ran to her but she was gone, a limp rag doll lying pale in my arms. I started running frantically, I'm not sure where I was going, and Tim said calmly, "No, put her down," and laid her out on the grass, my dear girl, my baby. He knelt down reverentially and breathed life back into her, breathed the pink back into her skin, breathed the little lungs to work, inspired the dark eyes to open, the limbs alive and clinging to me again.
I remember walking across the dunes to Shelly Beach at Kenton, the four year old Jess and I trailing way behind the others. I looked around to see her setting her feet down erratically over the flat rocks and scattered vegetation, bravely marching along on those skinny legs, peering at the ground. I asked her what she was looking at and she beamed up at me, "Look, the flowers are all smiling, Mom." They were little hardy purple vygies (mesembryanthemums) that I hadn't even noticed.
In time she has grown into a feisty passionate woman, a kind of animal whisperer, who has worked with tigers and lions and now cheetahs, who is brave and strong and true, like the song.
So happy birthday to my other darling dancing girl, who made me a mother for the second time, showed me how much love I had. Thanks for 28 years of love, of drawings and discussions, sunshine and shade, and for pointing out to me how flowers smile!
This collage I made for Jess when she left us last time. We are all hugging her still.
This has been a very happy last week at my school. Today was the Talent Show, organised by the Middle School student council. It is astonishing to watch another side of the students you teach. One grade 6 girl, who doesn't excel much at any academic work, sang Leona Lewis' Bleeding Love like a professional, this deep voice full of tone and emotion, emerging from this young kid, and she, taking over the stage, emitting such a confidence. The audience adored her and she came off to roars and applause, her face beaming her elation.
The audience loved the teachers' show too, and Lady Gaga and the Gaga dancers brought the house down!
I was in the 'bully' teachers' musical number. We were all fairly confident, even those among us with no natural dancing talent, because the best dancer was to dance in front so that we could watch her for our cues! Except that, when we were all taking her lead, she suddenly forgot the moves herself, and it kind of fell apart somewhat, but we all did our best and were complimented by the kids afterwards!
Then it was Field Day. Students were divided into 5 groups and each group did a different event for 45 minutes, then changed over to the next one. They played "old fashion" games, like throwing water balloons in pairs to see who lasted the longest. Soccer was played by two teams. "Capture the Flag", the Obstacle Course, and Close Combat were the other events. It was largely run by the 11th grade kids, who were really good at keeping things in check and establishing rules.
I learned how to play "Capture the Flag" which I have never played before. It is fun to see kids running flat-out, striving to catch someone from the other team, or to rescue their team-mates, or to grab a flag!
Keeping children busy, and happily busy, learning, experiencing, makes for a better world. And a good mix of physical and mental activity. If you have a curious mind and you get to run about every day, I think much of life is better, not so many drugs, not so much depression.
John Malkovich, who gave the commencement speech at our graduation tonight, (his son was graduating) made an interesting comment about drug use. He said, "Sure, man has always wanted oblivion, but never oblivion always. Remember that."
Time suddenly shows me these graduating students I have taught since 6th grade. Then they were just little bright sweet things. Now they are all adults, the guys thick and swarthy, or enormously tall and lanky, all with defined jaws, longer noses. The girls all beautiful, fresh-faced, wearing pearls and high heels (I wonder why that is the status symbol of growing up, being able to wear high heels, which are just about the most stupid shoe ever invented). Life is waiting for them, big LIFE out there, away from our little safe family of a school. We had the biggest graduation class yet, 22!
Another drawing from Six Flags, a kind of pseudo mill.
