Another birthday

In a few minutes we are expecting my family to descend on our house to celebrate K's 21st birthday.  This will be the second round of Happy Birthday singing - her friends came to a Hobbit themed party last weekend, and that was blustery fun.  I want to celebrate this marvellous human as much as possible - birthday or no birthday.  She makes the world a better place with her laughter, kindness and sense of propriety.

The hordes don't know it yet, but we have put together a slide show of photographs of special moments in K's life, and a fun quiz if anyone wants to join in.  We have a lot of photos, and sifting through the thousands this past week has been both a pleasure and a jolt for me. So many memories come up, and I felt both incredibly fortunate to have so many wonderful times in my heart, head and photo albums, and also more than a little sad.  Photos of people who can't share our celebrations with us any more, and the passing of time in what seems just a heartbeat, have made me tear up on more than one preview of the slideshow.

But I -we- are capable of holding two seemingly opposite emotions together at the same time.  The happiness makes the sadness bearable, and the sadness makes the happiness meaningful.

We tried the quiz out on her friends last week, and it was interesting to watch people's reactions.  Everyone organised themselves into groups and we gave each group a thick crayon and a clipboard of paper.  The quiet ones took notes while the videos were playing - what colour jersey K was wearing in the snow, who sang the backing track, what K wrote on the chimney with the power-hose while cleaning.  Others doodled, some producing quaint crayony pictures, others sat quite still and absorbed the information in picture form.  And it occurred to me that we all take in things in different ways, and there is no right way to learn or have fun.  They all seemed to enjoy the challenge - hence the repeat this afternoon with a different group.  I wonder how The Family will deal with it.

I like throwing an unexpected challenge out to people, as long as nobody takes it too seriously.  Challenges push our boundaries just a little and give us a taste of how doing things differently might increase our appetite for change.  And change we must, because being static is both impossible and unhealthy.  There are lots of changes happening here as K becomes more and more independent, and I adapt to adult children.  

It has been quite a year of celebrations so far, what with Andrew's 60th and K's 21st.  The rest of the year might seem a bit dull, unless we decide to fill it with new adventures and celebrations.

In the meantime we have cake to eat.  Happy birthday K.  I love you.

21 Years ago....

Sun and Ski

26 January:

Andrew is packing to go on his much anticipated Austrian ski holiday with his brothers.  We leave for the airport in two hours, and he is a bit more flappy than he usually is.  This trip is a celebration of Life as he hits 60. The brothers haven't had a joint adventure for too many years. (One lives in Canada, the other in the UK).   Underpants - tick.  Jeans - tick.  Long sleeved shirts - tick.  But when it came to socks there was an odd assortment of forlorn mismatched singles skulking at the back of the cupboard.  He found enough comfy matching pairs, and decided to part with some that had not yet morphed into hangers, and probably never will.  Almost there.  Ski pants and jacket - tick.  Book to read....   And he is ready!

Andrew on the move...

We celebrated his birthday yesterday.  It started with a leisurely breakfast in Kalk Bay (highly recommend the food at Chardonnay Deli), followed by a dip in the ocean.  It is pure bliss for me to float in sea salt with my ears under the water, bobbing to the gentle current.  It feels like being in Creation, with all external distractions floating away.  

Actually, I am hoping to make this  the Year of Distractions.  I fancy dipping my toes in new adventures, even if I discard them promptly or "fail" miserably.  So what.  I have made a start by signing up for an online course. K and I are sneaking off for a Daughter/ Mother weekend while Andrew is away.  I have started a new glass panel for nowhere in particular.   So the January distractions are doing well.  Who knows, by the end of the year, I may even have a cookie jar full of creative ideas and a house full of odd looking glass panels.

 

31 January:

Even my distractions get distractions it seems. Andrew is having a wonderful trip by the sounds of things - I am sure he will share his adventures with you when he gets back.  He sends daily maps of his ski runs, and of  people sunbathing in the snow.  I am hoping the brothers are having a good time of re-connection. 

 I have been enjoying having the extra space to uncap my eccentricness and lying low for a bit.  January is done and dusted. 2024 is well under way.  I hope it has started well for you.

 

29 January

25 January

 

 

Losing the block

 When we got married we bought a small dilapidated house in a friendly suburb.  It had everything we needed - walls, a roof and some outside space.  We added love and happiness, and within four years it was transformed into a family home.  (We also added paint, carpets, curtains and a kitchen with a dining room - but those were just structural changes.) In year 5 we celebrated our son's first birthday in our back garden.  It was a big family affair, because we had a big family.  Andrew's dad made a push along trolley for R with blocks that could be taken out and played with, and then neatly stored back in the trolley.  Such handmade gifts are real treasures.  R loved the block trolley - he wobbled up, grabbed the handle and started walking.

A few years later it was time to move.  We found a dilapidated house in another friendly suburb, and fell in love with this old fixer upper. (We're still here.) Moving is a stressful task, and being young and naive we decided to move everything ourselves with the help of a borrowed truck (and a friend - thank you Hazel).  We did car trip after car trip, and were pretty exhausted by the process.  And upset.  We couldn't find one block from the trolley that Grandad had made. Just one. We searched and searched, and finally reached the conclusion we had to let it go, and move on.

 Every now and then we would drive past that first house on the way to Andrew's work, and admire the garage door we had sanded and varnished.  Or see how the trees we had planted were doing.  Time passed, as it does, and we were well established in our new home.  I used to be an avid reader of  the property section of the Weekend Argus (one of my many strange habits....) and saw our old house was up for sale and On Show that Sunday.  We couldn't resist a trip down memory lane, so off we went to visit the tiles in the kitchen I had sealed a week before R was born, and see the kitchen cupboards we finished a month or so before selling the place, and check out our much loved garden.  We wandered through, pointing out this and that to the kids. In the back garden we had made a quiet spot with a bench and surrounded it with foliage to make it private.  It looked just the same as when we left. We went to sit on the bench as a last goodbye to the place.  And here comes the point of the story:  We sat, peacefully, admiring our handiwork, when one of us reached our hand down under the bench, and picked up the missing block.  Ten years later, and there it was, waiting for us to find it.

It was another extraordinary moment in my life. 

The lost block was returned to it's home, and the memory was complete.

But this is the other point of this story:  Andrew and I were chatting  to my brother about this incident a couple of weeks ago (while we were packing up the house my Dad lived in).  When we came to the part about who reached down and found the block, we each thought it was ourselves.  All these years I had been convinced I had seen the block. Now I am not so sure - Andrew thinks it was him.  The outcome is the same, but the process is different.  This is important to me, because memory can be a fickle friend. What other memories have I (unwittingly) distorted to fit my own narrative?  How much can I trust the details of my memories?  I found myself on shaky ground. I have been doing a lot of remembering lately, and I would very much like to be sure of the content and accuracy.  

One way to do it is to make memory blocks and try to fit them together to see if they work, and fit in the trolley, so to speak.  Mostly, though, I think, I need to learn to trust my heart, and accept that my experiences are just that - my experiences, and the memory of them forms part of the fabric of me. 

Lost things sometimes make their way back to us.  Even when we think they are gone forever.  Watch out for the unexpected!

A peek inside our pantry

 

 

 

It was time to turn up the heat this morning.  I haven't had a kitchen food bonanza day for quite some time.  Before covid, I used to do a lot more baking and cooking- for family birthdays or special occasions or for friends coming round for tea. I miss all that - the careful thought of who likes what, which flavours complement each other, the savoury versus sweet elements, some fresh fruit to cleanse the palette.  I miss the noise, the laughter, the chaos of big get-togethers, even if they are hard work.  

We are going on a picnic tomorrow, so I decided to have my kitchen day .  I started by making some pastry.  I used my Gran's recipe, written out for me by my Mom and given to me at my kitchen tea over 30 years ago.  There is a history of love in that recipe. While the pastry was chilling, I made the rock buns - scone-like dough with raisins, and iced with a lemon butter.

As it is a Saturday, the house was empty - it is archery day.  But the kitchen was filled with the presence of so many people. The quiche recipe is from an ex work colleague.  The rock bun icing reminds me of a  friend, because we used to joke about our lack of perfection on the fairy cakes made for the preschool our daughters went to.  The buns themselves make me think of Great Aunt Edna, because they are her favourite.  

Our kitchen has a few unusual quirks:  some years ago, we wrote our favourite recipes on the pantry wall, for example. (One of Son's friend's asked if we had run out of paper.) The jars that we keep the sugar, flour, cornstarch (etc) are all labelled with not only the contents, but also things like "respect", and "important conversations that bring awareness."  The vanilla essence jar is labelled "gender." These were placed there by Daughter  as part of of  presentation she and the Plus committee put together for  school.  The labels can stay:  I rather like using 2 cups of "Normalizing taboo subjects" in my cake when the recipe rather boringly calls for regular flour.

Food has always been  a language in itself :  The thoughtfulness of a meal when you are ill, celebratory cakes, welcome-home favourite dishes, successful and umm - unsual-   experiments of flavours....,playful cake decorating with kids.....so many moments are defined by flavour.

 For me, when people have brought me food, I take it as a huge act of love - someone telling me they will nourish me and look after me when I am unable to do so for myself or my family.  I know the time and cost sacrifice involved in cooking, and in cleaning up afterwards.  It is an unspoken way of shouldering a weight, by taking on more work to lessen the load for someone else.

DJ Opperman, a South African poet, wrote about the memories of aromas and foods in Sproeireen . 

My nooi is in ’n nartjie,

my ouma in kaneel,

daar’s iemand..iemand in anys,

daar’s ’n vrou in elke geur.

 It doesn't translate into English very well, but it is about how  fragrances remind him of women in his life.  I remember when I was in my thirties, I had baked a gingerbread (a soft gooey loaf of deliciousness - my other Gran's recipe) and offered a slice to a young salesman who had come to discuss some building we were thinking of doing.  He told me he liked our house - the smell and atmosphere (he said) reminded him of his much loved Grandma.  That compliment aged me a lot!

 The picnic is packed.  Dishes done. Tea and coffee flasks prepared. It is time for an adventure!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Heartbeat

 I found myself squelching through a Bad Mood last week.  The snappy, irritable type that makes me replace my usual sunny disposition with a cynical and cavalier dismissal of everything as  too much to deal with.  Sort of Tigger and Eeyore rolled into one.  I can't be much fun to live with when I am like this.  It's an annual thing, and predictable, so I can brace myself and my loved ones and ask for patience and forgiveness.

It was my birthday.  I find the week leading up to my birthday one of the most stressful of the year.  I am an oddball, I know, but that's the truth. I sometimes sit and puzzle the whys and prevention techniques, but this year - pandemic round 2- I just gave into it and became the family crocodile.  It is not about getting older (I don't think) - I am pragmatic about what can be controlled and what can't.  And it is not about not being celebrated - my husband and children are kind, thoughtful and lavish in their celebrations.  Nope - it is about me, and where I place myself in the world. Am I alone here?  Am I the only person who finds it difficult to celebrate my own life from the inside? 

This birthday was on a Sunday, and it was splendid.  We packed a picnic and headed to Kirstenbosch botanical gardens and lazed under a tree in the safety of fresh air and no one sitting nearby.  We gazed over Cape Town, ate sumptuously, and discussed the philosophy of being.  I was warmed by the afternoon sun, and the company of people I love.  

It got me to thinking that maybe next year I can end April in a chipper mood, and not worry so much about my birthday.  Perhaps it will be possible to break what may just be a habit of dread.  It got me thinking that, although my life is a little one, I have achieved greatness by being surrounded by wonderful beings and loving them deeply. Perhaps that is all there is to it:  Having a heartbeat and listening to myself being alive.

I will check in with you next year and let you know......