The dark side of gratitude

 It was a glimmery sunny day last Sunday, and I sat in the garden with my mug of tea, rereading The Ugly Duckling and enjoying some tortoise time.  I have an ambivalent relationship with fairy tales - I can appreciate the history and language, but I often find the themes outdated and laboured.  The Ugly Duckling however, has a cast of mostly animals, and that is somehow more palatable.  And of course the themes of finding your space in the world, the hurt of being bullied and appearance discrimination  are important and  thought worthy contemplations for a sunny Sunday morning.  

I was wanting to look beyond the obvious though, to see what else resonated with me.  And guess what - one of the themes was around gratitude. The little "duck", having been rejected by family and community, having survived being shot at by hunters, and having been thankful that he was too ugly for a dog to bite and eat him, finds refuge from a storm in a cottage occupied by an old woman, a cat and a hen.

Sounds good doesn't it, to find a home after such a rough journey, even if he knew he was only being tolerated there for the possibility of his usefulness (alas, no eggs for the old woman, but she didn't know that).  The cat, speaking to our hero who wanted to go for a swim, and who voiced the truth that the cat didn't understand him, tells the swan to "thank your good fortune that you have been received here....I advise you, therefore, to lay eggs, and learn to purr as quickly as possible."  

Be grateful and conform.

Please don't misunderstand me - I absolutely believe in gratitude and am grateful daily for very many things.  But I think it is a mistake to tell/hint to other people to show gratitude, because such an instruction comes fully loaded with oppression, submissiveness and judgement. Telling someone to be grateful for what they have often implies that they shouldn't expect more, and are indeed lucky to be in the situation they are in.  But what if they don't feel lucky?  What if they want more?  What if conformity is damaging to them? 

Gratitude is strictly personal.  Anyone imposing it on you may have an ulterior motive, and it is an easy trap to fall into.  Because if you don't show the gratitude expected of you, the trapdoor of guilt is right there waiting for you to fall into.  Sometimes the negative voices telling us to be  grateful and conform are not from society at large, or even people in your inner circle.  Sometimes it is your internal voice betraying you.  If the sentiment comes out as "I should feel grateful, but....." take a step back from that guilt trapdoor, and ask whose voice you are listening to.  If you do feel grateful then skip right along and enjoy the bounty of your gratefulness.

The Ugly Duckling found the strength to leave warmth and safety of the cottage to follow his instinct that better things were out there.  It wasn't easy, and he had a rough winter, almost freezing to death, facing more rejection and much self loathing.  

But, as we all know, it ends well with him finding his place and happiness.   

The fable makes me uneasy to be honest.  A lot of it centres around others' reactions to the poor little outcast, and even in the end, the duckling is only happy when he finds acceptance in community of lookalikes. I often find myself on the outskirts of groups - sometimes by choice, but not always, and I wonder if I were to look into that reflective pond as the Ugly duckling did, would I like what I saw as much as he did?

I love swans.  In my family they are known as "Oofs" thanks to K who was delighted by these creatures when we stayed on Eel Pie Island near Twickenham when she was a toddler and inventing words.  They swam gently on the Thames River, coming up to the edge to be admired.  They can be scary creatures too - loud and aggressive when they feel threatened. We took quite a few happy snaps of them that holiday, and Andrew kindly and skillfully painted a couple of pictures which hang in our house. They are  constant reminders to me that reflections of kindness and self acceptance are the positive outcomes of gratitude.

Travelblog

Those people who say Life is about the Journey, not the Destination, don't travel Economy class on long haul trips.  This time last week we were chatting to an over zealous check-in assistant at Heathrow airport, who thought the battery in the built-in scale of Andrew's suitcase, might pose a security risk. We were coming home -via Doha- after the most fabulous two weeks in the UK. 

The absolute highlight was also the reason for this trip - we were privileged enough to watch our son receive his PhD in Mathematics from Cambridge University.  I guess it is a private sort of moment to see someone you love achieve something he has worked so hard for.  I can't yet put into words the explosion of celebration I felt on a synaptic, cellular level.  Being together as a family was the background of happiness, celebrating is the overlayer of  fireworks and champagne.

Trinity graduates walking to Senate House

Even the weather smiled on us that Friday - the daily drizzle stayed away.  After the Latin ceremony (I had brushed up on Duolingo and could follow most of it), Trinity treated us to lunch in the college grounds.  We celebrated later with a sublime dinner.  What a day.

I know, I know.....here we go again, me bubbling over with green-making potions.  But it has been a tough, exhausting year, and this was just the reset I needed.  Let me bubble a bit.

We started our trip in Surrey with much loved family, walking country lanes, eating, laughing, catching up.  Trying to forget that we live continents apart, and time together like this has to be savoured and put in the memory bank because the distance is so great. 
The teenage niece taught me to Just Dance, as my attempts at Mario Kart (these are Wii games) have not improved in the last 6 months and probably never will.  I am ok with that.

 

 

We stayed one night in the very middle of London - Piccadilly Circus -  and managed to tick off a few of the sights we really wanted to see. 

If you want details of the V and A or Science museum visits, or the interesting statue in one corner of Trafalgar Square, or how K got pickpocketed, or Spitalfields market send me a DM.  :)

But on to Cambridge (via a non functioning rail trip...) .  It is a magical place, with beautiful buildings, parks, and abundance of museums (opening hours are strange - best to check), a market,  quaint shops and something of interest around every corner, and of course the river Cam. It helps to have family with inside knowledge of  whats-on too.  S suggested we try a Shakespeare from the selection being performed in the colleges' gardens. What fun to picnic beforehand and belly laugh through the wit of Much Ado about Nothing in the grounds of St Johns College.  Not even the bracing dampness could spoil the evening.....

I will mention just two more things (hope your tea is still hot - otherwise I can wait while you make another cup) :  Another trip to the theatre, and what to do on a rainy Saturday afternoon.

R treated us all to tickets to see the Agatha Christie play, "Witness for the Prosecution" .  The theatre is the County Hall in London (next to the London Eye), and used to be the Greater London Council headquarters.  So the setting is perfect for a courtroom drama, and if you are sitting in particular seats, you will be chosen for jury duty. It is immersive theatre at its best, well acted, fast paced and more of an experience than just a play.

It was raining quite heavily on the last Saturday we were there.  Cambridge is definitely a Walking Zone ( we averaged about 10km a day) and after a fancy brunch at a restaurant, we decided we needed an indoor activity. R and S knew just the place.  We were lucky to get a table for a couple of hours at the Board Game cafe, slightly out the centre of town.  And we spent two happy hours playing board games from their large (over 500) selection, sipping tea, chatting, and you guessed it - more laughing. The vibe is relaxed and animated, the perfect way to spend some quality family time together on a wet weekend.

We had such a good holiday, that we just let the airport official fuss about the battery in Andrew's case without it bothering us or us needing to show him the absurdity of his logic.  His supervisor did that anyway.  Airports can be stressful environments, as we were reminded right at the beginning of this journey.  K sometimes holds her breath when her back pack goes through the x-ray machine, as she carries insulin and needles and such like paraphernalia. And indeed at Cape Town International, her bag was sent for second look.  She explained the situation, started hauling out the doctor's letter, but the official said no, that wasn't what they were looking for.  Security isolated the object of concern.  It was a toy car that K was carrying with her in memory of her grandfather.  (They had a thing, and indeed a whole language, about vehicles. ) Apparently a toy is of more concern than the needles and medicine vials. 

I guess in life, the journey and the destination are equally important and  indeed symbiotic.  But should you get stuck in the airport of life and happen to be in Doha, head to Terminal C - there is a cool, misty indoor garden to enjoy while you wait for your next flight and choose your next destination.

        

 

 

 

 

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!

Lemon juice

 Invisible words were such fun when we were kids.  Remember squashing lemons to create magic ink?  We would write our secret messages in lemon juice, wait for it to dry, and then give a seemingly blank piece of paper to our friends.  Those in the know immediately decoded the message using a candle to brown the paper, revealing the words in a darker shade of burnt.  Somehow we managed to not destroy any great buildings or need any hospital visits while performing these dark arts. 

Invisible messaging is still around, and perhaps even more pervasive in the social media society.  It is often the unspoken and implied words that form the backdrop to the world of text we live in.  Advertising is the most obvious example, where most often the hidden message is you are lacking if you don't own The Product or Lifestyle choice on offer.  Invisible messaging is often about comparison, and implied criticism.  It can be very destructive.

For most of my life I have struggled with the balance of being visible and invisible.  Most often as a child I wanted to blend in with the wall paint, and I think I used a beige personality to achieve this.  Being invisible allows you freedom of movement, and access to knowledge that people don't realisze you are gathering.  Much like a spy in a war - blend in or hide in plain sight, and use the cover to keep safe.  But as I got older, I so wished to be seen.  Really seen, and this meant I had to show more colours than beige, and actually find out what colours suit who I am.  It is a long process.

Women tend to be more invisible than men.  It is not uncommon when I am out with Andrew that I greet someone, and they reply with a greeting to Andrew only.  It frustrates me no end.  It is not news that women have been overlooked and underestimated for centuries, but it is time to achieve some balance.  That's what I am working on now - seeing people as they want to be seen (beige or bright), hearing people and listening for both the words and the invisible messages in their tone, body language and what is left unsaid. Maybe then, when people are heard and seen, we can use the lemon juice for more tasty experiments than secret letters. 

 

 Like this one - an upside down lemon pudding:

 

As the worm turns

 Why, do you think, are butterflies exalted and moths just tolerated? Indeed, butterflies come in majestic colours and gracefully dance on flower tips while moths are a dull brown or grey and tend to fly annoyingly around a light source. I love watching the butterflies in my garden, and feel quite privileged when a particularly beautiful one settles near me and keeps me company. But moths - not so much.

I have been watching the clivia plants near my washing line.  Some of the leaves are rich breeding grounds for worms.  They (the worms!) are stripey and obviously very hungry.  Unlike other caterpillars, these seem to suck the moisture out of the leaves, which look withered and discoloured.  But they don't actually eat the plant flesh.  I was wondering what to do.  Instinctively, I thought of picking them off and sending them to a unpleasant end.

  But I stopped to remind myself how much I like the next stage of their life cycle as butterflies.  So I took a judgement call that we could sacrifice some clivia leaves for a beautiful future.  I do need to keep an eye on the situation though, because too many worms will destroy all the plants, and that isn't eco-friendly either.  The masses of orange flowers delight me as much as the wild life in the garden.  It is, as usual , all about balance.  I hope I have judged the ratio of worms to leaves correctly.

Nothing other than hope is informing my judgement either - these worms could turn into those dull moths for all I know.  I had to look up the difference between the species too.  The main difference seems to be how the wings fold and unfold. And the whole daytime versus night time thing. Moths are not brightly coloured, but muted and dreary.

I am finding writing difficult at the moment.  This blog is an exercise in the the Just Do It philosophy, because writing is really important to me, and silencing myself feels a bit like the leaves that have had the life sucked out of them : Wilted, and on a one way trip to the compost heap.  But maybe, if I live with the unwordiness I am feeling now, some of those worms will turn into butterflies, and some light, attractive thoughts will land on my paper.  To be honest, I would be just as happy if they turned into moths.  Dull and steadfast is just as good for me.  

The beauty of a creature is about perspective isn't it.  Moths and butterflies are both exquisite complicated insects intricately formed, and as lovely as each other.  Worms and caterpillars too for that matter.  We all start somewhere until we evolve to whoever we want to be.

Here's hoping my pupa stage doesn't last too long.

The kindness of love

 February is traditionally the month of love.  Much of this is in the form of chocolates, cards and overpriced flowers on the 14th.  For me, this year, the month of February showed me love in other, deeper, more meaningful ways.  I saw love in my siblings sitting next to my father's hospital bed every day he was there.  I saw in it the cups of tea bought for me at Vincent Pallotti Hospital's little cafe.  I saw it in my daughter reading extracts from The Little Prince to her grandfather in  his conscious moments. Love was a squeeze of a hand, a shoulder to cry on, friends checking in with me.

Endings are usually difficult, and my father's death two weeks ago, was ungentle (if that is a word) and difficult.  His body finally caved in on him.  Actually, to me, it felt more like a volcanic explosion than a caving in, as though his insides couldn't be contained any more and erupted through stoma bag and his under functioning lungs.  This may be too much detail, but sometimes we gloss over the reality of death, and I don't want to do that. It was difficult to watch.

Mom and Dad

We held a tea to honor him last weekend. ( Tea, as you know, is my drug of choice when I am stressed, and let's just say I have consumed a ship load recently).  It is all too recent for me to write much about how I am feeling.  There is a certain rawness and vulnerability that comes with the realization that both my parents have abandoned earth.

I scrolled through some of my father's whatsapp messages to me over the last 6 months.Ninety percent of them are shopping lists, which I know off by heart anyway.  Yoghurt, soup, peaches, rolls, coke, cheese, fruit juice and bananas were the basics, and the steady rhythm of requests feels like a love poem to me sometimes.  Actually, it is in Pick n Pay that I feel the most bereft at the moment, and it takes courage for me not to weep in the Tinned Fruit Aisle. I am just avoiding shopping for the time being. My Dad also liked to end his messages with appropriate and numerous emojis. Flower, heart, rose, heart, thank you hands, sunflower, heart, and his signature smiley face with glasses that he used to identify himself. I will miss this whatsapp poetry.

Love is such a strange and complicated concept, entangled with emotions, thoughts, vulnerabilty and yearning.  And all that is swirling in me at the moment.  

Tread carefully please: spillage in the Tinned Fruit Aisle.👴🌼💓🌹💓🌻🙏

And on we go....

 2023.  Are you ready for whatever is going to be flung at us this year?  For South Africans, the year has started with up to 10 hours every day without electricity.  And the most upsetting part of this is the feeling of powerlessness that comes with it.  Frankly, it scares me.  There is no way an economy can grow, or even survive, without the power to work.  And from here, it is pretty much down hill into a deep, inextricable mire of societal issues.  Even more than we face now.

Despite my gloomy start to this blog, my year actually started off Very Well.  As midnight rolled the years over, we - the 5 of us - were still eating the feast that our son and his partner (S) had prepared for us in Cambridge.

  And what a feast it was - scallops on cauliflower puree with pomegranate seeds, cheese souffle, roast beef with potatoes and asparagus, and a rich chocolate tart - all locally sourced ingredients  cooked to perfection. What an immense gift to start the year surrounded by my lovely family.

Christmas was just as special.  S was still in Cape Town, so the 4 of us spent the most relaxing, leisurely day celebrating love, and being together.  Some days are stand out moments in life.  This was one of them.

We spent most of our holiday in Cambridge itself.  It is a beautiful place, small enough to have most things in walking distance, and big enough to find new places to explore every day.  I love the cobbled streets, the river, the quirky sense of humour scattered around the place.

(Check out https://www.dinkydoors.co.uk/ as an example.)

And we had SNOW.  It dazzled and delighted us. How wonderful to be surrounded by blankets of white fields.

We took a lot of photographs because snow is a strange phenomenon for us at the bottom of Africa. 

We ventured into London twice. (There is an excellent parking app if anyone is needing that sort of info - people let out their driveways or front garden space for a day, and it is much cheaper and works much better than trying to park officially anywhere in the outer London area. Park at the edge of zone 2, and use the underground - it's quick and affordable....)  Our daughter had prepared a "treasure hunt" (my description, not hers) and mapped out a route to see the unusual side of London.  So we went to Hoxton to see a Monster Supply Store.

  (It's really a front for something far more sinister than monsters - it raises funds for creative writing courses.  Monsters won't scare the world, but creative writing just might).  We found, after much searching, because it is UNDER the Bloomberg Building, the Temple of Mithras.
We went to Novelty Automation (https://www.novelty-automation.com/). We explored St Dunstans, a casualty of the second world war. Another treasure was an Algerian coffee store that has been around since 1887. 

Our visit there was fleeting because our feet were sore and it was raining.  We did the mainstream stuff too - Hamleys, Burlington Arcade, Selfridges etc and rocked up home at a respectably late 11pm.

I am worried I am making you all a little jealous, so I won't go on and on about all the fabulous times we had, or the delicious pub meals, or seeing beloved family, or the hilarious games we played, or our trips to Leicester, Norwich and Surrey.  Or the London Christmas lights and atmosphere, or the quirky house we stayed in (The house swap thing worked well) I won't even mention the Kings Speech bingo, or the swans on the river Cam. And I will avoid stories about the snow wanderings and wood fires with mulled wine. Suffice to say, you would have wanted to be there too.

I seem to have written myself out of my load shedding bad mood.  Remembering all the good stuff is an important balance when life seems a bit dark.  The Monster Supply store is definitely onto something- creative writing is an excellent way to tame a Kraken.