Day 285

Last picture of our dear little Lily-cat.

She stopped eating yesterday and miaowed loudly during the night which woke me up, thinking she was in pain.

In the morning she tried to eat but didn't seem able to, and then she followed me around, needing to be with me, even struggling up the stairs about five times to find me in the bathroom where I was doing all the laundry, and later when I had a shower after my run, she lay on the big pile of white socks and towels waiting their turn in the washing machine.  Every time I stroked her she rewarded me with brave soft purring which resulted in wet eyes for me. 

So in the golden afternoon I took her to our lovely vet, who was so sweet with her, and with me, explaining everything she was about to do and what Lily's reactions might be, so that neither of us was frightened, indeed, Lily was lying on her little blanket actually purring while I stroked her, when the vet gave her the sedative injection, and she just slowly relaxed, still breathing but kind of out of it, and then the vet shaved her little skinny leg, and delivered the anaesthetic which killed her so peacefully.  Dr B. was so kind, and as I had opted for cremation she wrapped her carefully in the blanket after offering me more time with her and saying how sorry she was, as I was by this time a complete disaster, but I just thanked her profusely, through my blubbering, managing to communicate to her that it is so wonderful that we can do this amazing thing for our animals, and that she had just done it so beautifully.  She said yes, it had been the best thing to do, we had given her a lovely last few years of her life, and that she hoped that someone could do it for her when her time came. 

Death is so strange, one minute the animal (or person) is alive, with a character, a history, a heart still beating, lungs still inflating and deflating, a life still being lived.  The next second that essence is gone.

I drove home remembering all my dead, and keening for them all.

So goodbye little ancient Lily cat, you have gone for your last constitutional outside among the tall trees, lain in your last patch of warm sunlight, purred your last amazing throaty buzzing purr, smacked your last dog's nose, imagined chasing your last chipmunk, lain in your last royal pose showing your aristocratic profile, slept your last innocent sleep.

I will miss your beautiful white whiskers which were perfect, even when your fur was matted and  moth-eaten from old age's inability to clean your formerly spotless self.  I will  miss your knowing green eyes locking with mine, miss your uncanny ability to know when I walked in the door, even though you were stone-deaf in your last year or so.  I would come home from school, open the door to the sight of you and the black dog coming to greet me, Molly's claws scratching the floor madly as she galloped along, you walking in the elegant manner of cats, pretending not to be hurrying, but eager for my hand on your head and your neck and your ears and your bony back.

You lived nearly twenty-two years and gave us much pleasure for the last five that we knew you.  Rest in peace brave and good little cat.



I ran today through the autumn-coloured meadow, hard going, 2.48 miles (4km).

Day 284

Dophins in the Gulf of Maine.

Whale watching tickets, a late birthday gift, courtesy of Gene. 

In their element of water, which must have been her element in a previous life, in their summer feeding grounds of the North Atlantic Ocean, which has quite poor visibility, but is very rich in phyto-plankton, there are huge dark supple animals to be seen from a boat.  They are rare, compared to human beings, only about 80 000 world-wide.  They can be noticed by scanning the sea for their "blows", the spout of water caused by their breath when they come up to breathe air like land mammals. like the human race, of which she is often ashamed to be a member.

She remembers a cerise t-shirt she bought and wore proudly when she was a student, with loud black letters protesting whaling, which read, simply, STOP KILLING WHALES.  She remembers an old respected lecturer at the university asking her "What about people?" and in the context of South Africa of the 70's this made her feel guilty at first, then not, as people were not in any danger of dying out, whereas whales like humpbacks were being hunted to the brink of extinction.  She wore the shirt for more than 10 years, until it was worn through with little holes, and in 1986 the International Whaling Commission declared a moratorium on whaling, which still stands today, although Japan and Norway do not recognise it, and continue, senselessly, killing whales.

The biggest threat to whales now is pollution, noise pollution from boats, air pollution and the worst, plastic and every other kind of junk pollution that humans put into the sea. Not one section of the great oceans of the world is free of plastic pollution now, which is unbelievably sad, and yet people carry on using and discarding plastics of every kind.   The gulf of Mexico is chock-a-block full of oil-rigs digging wells, little thought given to long-term consequences, despite the recent most extensive "spill" in history.  Human beings are tiny children still in terms of future thought and planning.

On the way out to Jeffreys Bank, an area frequented by whales in the Gulf of Maine, a little girl could at times be heard singing a toneless sound, on and on, and later, when the whales were sighted, she proudly told the naturalist that she had called the whales! 

They are such beautiful enormous black creatures of the water, enchanting, endlessly fascinating.  They sport huge pectoral fins, the largest of any whale.  The powerful fins can be up to 5 metres long and weigh up to two tons.  They're coloured white so they look bright green under the water, to people looking over the sides of a boat, waiting for the dive, where the tail comes up, spilling water, liquid movement.

The scientific name for humpbacks is Megaptera novaeangliae, which means, The great wing from New England.   Which is wonderful, as she is from New England now too.

It was very cold on the boat, but they had a wonderful amazing day, the two of them, the middle-aged lovers. 

Day 283 (10/10/10 - auspicious date, and Molly's 10th birthday)

Dock dog jumping.

At the Topsfield Fair yesterday we watched these dogs trying to jump the furthest distance into the water while chasing a toy-duck, or a ball, or some other chaseable throwable thing.  They were so game, so eager, the epitome of life lived out loud.  Dogs are just amazing creatures, these ones willing to dive into a pool of very cold water on a very cold evening, to the thrill and cheering of the appreciative crowd. 

Tim and I both worked on the candle-making tables at the Fair last night, and between us was one my favourite beekeepers, Jane.  She can charm a smile out of the sourest person.  She is one of the warmest people I've ever met, just draws you in with her blend of sweetness and toughness.  She has a loud school-marm's voice, and is not afraid of anyone.  She quizzed young and old alike on what they had learned over at the observation hives before they came over to the candle-making tables, and if they could not remember a bee fact she told them one, then drilled it into them so that they would be sure never to forget it!  She grew up the eldest of six children, so had responsibilities from a very young age.  She also just has a natural way with people.

We are almost complete opposites.  I was the youngest of three, the beloved baby by many years, with no responsibilities for younger siblings, and a relatively easy childhood spent doing mostly what I wanted to do.  I have a soft voice, and am quite shy.  I can be good with people but I am definitely not a natural at it. 

Of course there is room and need in the world for both of us, for our different types of people.  It is just so lovely to be included in that charisma for a few hours.  I went home with a warm glow from sitting next to her.

Walking with Molly today we saw that a tree had fallen over into the road leading into the meadow.  There is another ash tree which has been uprooted nearby but it landed on a dead branch of an old  pine, and has stuck there, rather precariously, I suppose until the dead branch finally gives way.  I had the selfish wish for many trees to fall into the road so that it becomes impassable, and the meadow becomes mine alone. 

I saw a lone monarch butterfly, too late for migration, I expect, but flitting happily about, nevertheless.  Where do the butterflies all go when it rains?   There is not a butterfly, grasshopper or dragonfly to be seen in the rainy meadow.  Sun comes out, and there they all are, as though nothing had happened, as though they had been there all along. 

Tonight we had a lovely birthday dinner with newish friends, and I drew a picture of their son as a gift, from a photograph Nick had taken a few days ago. 

Day 282

Girl balancing.

Running for the first time since Monday, thoughts floated across my mind while my legs pounded away, managing 2.05 miles (3.29 km) at 7.54 minutes per km.

I thought of the four amazing girls in my group of ten children at Chewonki, how incredibly sweet and good they were, how kind to one another and to others in need, like one little homesick boy, and how willing to work really hard!  Their tent was the first to go up and the first to come down, while the boys needed so much help, one group was utterly clueless!

On the last day the four tall boys said they wanted to carry the wanagon (big heavy wooden box with all the pots, pans, utensils food, etc in it) back to "town" (the main buildings) from our campsite, all the way by themselves, with no switching to different people, a practice previously employed to ensure that no one became too tired. Jane, the counselor, pointed out that it was a long way, nearly a mile, but they were insistent.

Not even a quarter of the way there, the boys put down the wanagon and demanded a switch.  Jane quietly reminded them that no, actually they had decided to carry it the entire way and then she left it to play itself out.  A hot argument ensued, with one boy even stomping some way up the path and having a minor tantrum for a few minutes.   Eventually, after a 10-minute impasse, the girls dropped what they were carrying and marched up to the front, shouldered the pole with the wanagon, and jauntily carried it the rest of the way to "town".  Go GIRLS!

Thinking about them, these beautiful little creatures who have yet to experience all the tribulations associated with relationships with the opposite sex, I thought of how women have been oppressed for so many thousands of years, and what a tragedy this is.

It is tragic not just for individual women who suffer dreadfully under various terrible traditions like female genital mutilation, which takes place predominantly on the northern half of my continent, the continent of Africa, that continent which seems as though it will always be "dark".  Or Chinese girls having their feet bound, a practice which continued for a thousand years and was considered deeply erotic!  Erotic, a woman not being able to walk or be independent at all, with severely deformed feet, which often smelt terrible because of saprobic micro-organisms which invaded folds that were impossible to wash!  Or Sati (the hindu practice of a widow immolating herself by force or voluntarily, on her late husband's funeral pyre), honour killing, sex trafficking, etc. ad nauseum.

Sharks and minnows

It is also a tragedy for the human race.  Each sex needs the other.  Each sex has different strengths and weaknesses, which often complement one another. 

At Chewonki the girls worked hard and didn't complain and whine like some of the boys did.  But certain boys also worked really hard, did amazing things, others engaged in interesting conversations, and some of them were just plain funny, they made us laugh, they played games involving running about a lot, all that energy!  It shouldn't be a war.  We should recognise one another.

Day 281

Golden eagle with handler.

10 eleven-year old children and their teacher, all tired, smelly, sitting on the long Chewonki porch, waiting to get on the bus to go home to their families, after two and a half days of camping, of rain, rain and more rain, of arguing, of learning, of singing,of cooking, of carrying water, of living in close proximity to one another in tents, a little tired of one another, quiet for once, waiting.

One of the liveliest kids suddenly disappears down the other end of the porch, and two others follow.  The weary teacher gets up to go and retrieve the errant trio, only to see what they have been attracted to, an amazing bird, a huge golden eagle, sitting on the arm of his handler/keeper.  She rushes back for her camera, telling the others to follow her, and they all come alive to see this sight.  They all ask intelligent questions and listen respectfully for the answers.  The eagle was shot and so his left wing is useless, he will never fly.  He weighs eleven pounds.  His eyeballs are the same size as ours.  She tells them that at this time of year he gets rather agitated because he feels that deep desire to follow his instinct to migrate, so she takes him for long walks, which he seems to rather enjoy.  She moves her arm so that he has to flap his wings, and the left one does not follow the perfect rush of the right, which also swishes the cheek of the aforementioned lively kid, which he will later say was the high point of his camping trip.

Eventually our camp counselor calls us to come and eat, as she has brought all the ingredients for us to make our last lunch sandwiches before we get on the bus.  We slowly tear ourselves away from the magical creature.

Sunrise at low tide.

The weird marks on the sand are tracks from men who collect blood-worms for bait.  They work every time it is low tide, whether it is dark or light.  Amazingly tough work, bent over continuously, and cold, very cold. 

Day 280

Roots and leaves - On the way back to camp.

Rain and more rain - everyone was excited for the Barn Climb, an old barn with about 10 different climbs set up in it, where everyone wears helmets and is hooked in at all times.  They were excited, if not to actually climb, then just to be indoors and out of the constant wetness.

Several boys became decidedly unenthusiastic when they saw what each climb entailed, and some actually managed to do no climbing at all, just helped their partners do the climbs.  The whole point of climbing is to challenge yourself, but it would seem this is not part of some kids' experience.  

Two children, a girl and a boy, made it to the very top climb, the cormorant's walk, and one boy did the hardest climb of all, although I forget what its name is.  But it involves traversing across very high beams on ropes and whatnot, ultra-scary!  I was very proud of all those who tested themselves.

In the afternoon the sun came out at last, and my spirits immediately lifted, flew up actually, so that I loved everyone again and the world was indeed a beautiful place!

We observed an exquisite rainbow, and everyone dashed to the water's edge to see it and exclaim.  Two girls stayed after everyone else had rushed off again, sitting alone, one above the other on the rocks, watching the beauty in silence, expanding their souls.

Each night I took ages and ages to fall asleep, partly because of the strangeness of sleeping on a thin little sleeping pad, in a sleeping-bag which restricts all your movements, in a hoodie so that I wouldn't get cold, and in a draughty old damp tent full of spiders.  But mostly I think, because we were all in bed by about 8.30pm, and my earliest bed-time is 11pm!  I was very glad of my group though, because other groups experienced many mishaps throughout the night, like children vomiting, or being homesick, so that the other teachers were quite exhausted by their broken sleep.  Whereas our group, even the crazy rambunctious kids, went straight to sleep as soon as Jane had read them a story.

And so we passed our last night at Chewonki.  It felt as though I had been gone for a long long time, I think because it is so utterly different from my usual life, you are completely cut off from the outside world, no radio, no cellphones, no internet.  And everything down to basics, digging a hole for your toilet, cooking over a fire, surviving with headlamps as the only light when the sun goes down.  Pretty strange.

Playing "Sharks and Minnows"

It is one of those experiences that you are glad about once it is over. Pretty amazing, actually.

Day 279

Low tide.

I wake to rain pelting down on the world.  I eat, grab my pack and leave in fairly good time, but of course everyone had the same idea today and the roads are jammed with shiny chrome and lights on wet wheels.  At the allotted time I am supposed to be sitting on the bus, I am still probably 15 minutes away, so get on the phone to the principal who panics a bit because of all the parents waiting in the rain to wave goodbye to their children.  We decide that I will go back up route 93 and find a big parking lot where the bus can pick me up and turn around, and she will jump on the bus and then drive my car back to school!

Chewonki is about three and a half hours away, where kids have to turn in their cellphones, etc. and really BE in the bush for three days, well, two and a half.  But it is raining when we arrive, drizzling on our mile-long walk to the campsite shouldering our heavy packs, and pouring down lavish buckets of water while we put up the tents, so that when we put down our little sleeping mats, they are just about floating on the water collected in the bottom of the tent!  

I am miserable.  I can deal with rain as infrequent showers, but if it goes on for days my psyche starts drowning in it.  As an older person I also am not fond of being wet and cold for long periods of time.  Plus the fact that I have no waterproof clothing, so had to borrow Tim's, which make me look a bit like the Michelin Man, and this sort of poor self-image also doesn't go far towards raising your spirits.

The children are really wonderful though, they jolly themselves through it all, and although some tents and sleeping bags are soaked, they manage to share blankets and clothes and whatnot, amazing!  I wake up just before dawn with a massive headache, and manage to go and perform my ablutions in the nearly-light forest just before everyone else wakes up. 

There are no pictures of this day, I have no rain-gear for the camera.  This one is from an animal studies class on Thursday afternoon.  The fascination of skulls.

What I remember most about this day is wet children and trying so hard to make a fire with my crew of three, who I instruct to make up a fire-song-and-dance to attract fire, like a rain-dance?  They willingly oblige, under the dripping tarp, so that as I try to get a spark to grow under the wet twigs and small pieces of wood we have gathered, I am accompanied by a kind of rap song encouraging the fire to grow, grow grow!  They are so excited when their song takes power as the fire flickers on to the larger pieces on the fifth try!

On the last day we all sit around and have to think of something we loved or something we learned while we were here.  Also one thing we learned about ourselves.  One kid mentions making the fire with me as the high point of his stay at Chewonki! 

Day 278

Camouflage drawing.

My seventh and eighth grade students are just wonderful.  I absolutely love my classes with them!  They are enthusiastic, full of life, willing to work hard, and excited by the exquisite results they see on the walls.

So tonight I burst out at supper with "My kids are the best in the whole world!" meaning my students, but the boys both swelled a little with pride, only to be dashed to the ground by my continuation of the sentence, explaining that it was my students I was talking about!  And then you can never set it right, even though I told them that of course they were the best kids in the whole world, it went without saying, and on and on, digging the hole deeper, etc. etc.,  Their initial delight had had a cold bucket of water poured on it by a thoughtless mother.  Oh dear, sometimes we are so stupid, us mothers!

So tomorrow I am off to an outward bound camping trip in Maine with 30 little 6th graders, where the rain looks like it is going to be falling unhappily the entire time!  Anyway, I have managed to build up some excitement for myself, as I may have a whole group of disappointed and upset children, so I can't be one of the sad ones! 

I will resume the blog on Friday night, with two catch-up entries, which I will prepare in my soggy tent each night in my diary.

I have become fascinated by crows.  Well, more fascinated.  More on that later.  I must go and pack...

Day 277

The woodsman and his apprentice.

I ran 1.42 miles (2.28 km) although I have no idea how long I took because I wore no watch and couldn't find my phone.  It was all miserable and rainy and I am not looking forward to camping in the rain with my grade 6 class later on this week!

My mother's lucky number was 7, and there are two of them in this day's number, so it reminded me of her.  And of course it is one of my lucky numbers too.

Weird how superstitions are handed down, like throwing a pinch of salt over your left shoulder into the devil's eyes, even though long ago you gave up any idea of the existence of the devil or god.  But you observed your mother doing it almost every day in the kitchen, and so she bequeathed this little habit to you, and it makes you feel good.  And now some of your own children do it as well.

Or like "Bless you!" when you sneeze.  It feels as though you will not be blessed if no one says it, and it is so widespread that complete strangers will bless you if you sneeze in their vicinity, like in a store or on a train. It is as automatic as saying "please" and "thank you".

There is a theory that religion is a bi-product of human evolution.  It was most likely created by people as a means to deal with the tragedies of life and death, and as a way of keeping the peace.  Before there were rules and governments and police forces etc. it would have been difficult for one person to say to another "You have done wrong!  You can't do that!"  You have to do it this way!" because "Who are you to tell me what to do?"  But if everyone believed in a god or gods who told people how to behave in order to get to heaven or karma or whatever, it made societal life much easier.  The human mind was the result of a sudden expansion of cognitive abilities about fifty thousand years ago.  Religion is the price we pay for being different from all the other animals.

Tonight I worked at the Topsfield Fair in the Bee Building.  It is the oldest Fair in the country, and Chubby Checker celebrated his 69th birthday there today, apparently.  There are three things you do as a volunteer, work in the store selling honey and other bee products, stand at one of the observation hives and tell people all about bees, showing them the queen etc., or rolling candles with mostly kids who pay you their dollar and walk away with smiling faces admiring their handiwork.  Guess which one I love doing most?

It is so interesting to see how some children are so confident and do things so easily, following your instructions with natural dexterity, while others sidle up to the chair shyly and everything is a struggle, choosing the two colours they are allowed, deciding whether they want to make a long skinny one or a short stubby one, then taking over from your hands once you have started  by inserting the wick, even deciding whether they want a packet in which to place their candle once it is done!  And some parents are shy and offish, while others are right in there with their children encouraging them.  Some of them have these tiny little hands, others have big fat awkward fingers.  They all, without exception, love to create a beautiful little two-coloured candle out of two sheets of wax and a bit of string.  And I love watching them and helping them do it.

So this is my little short stubby one I made from damaged wax sheets.

There is something magical and mystical about a candle, appealing to our spiritual side.  When Tim was detained the little girls and I lit a candle every night for him, and while it burned we talked about him and thought about him and drew pictures for him.  They loved that every day we did that very positive thing in a seemingly hopeless time.

My sister lights candles for people too.  I think it was her I was emulating when I began the practice.

Day 276

Tim tossing the cabers!  Two at once!

Several people we know had their first fires in their woodstoves today, and although his family suggested it too, Tim always likes to wait until it is REALLY cold before we have ours.  It was 70F inside so it didn't really make sense, even if it was cold outside.

There is a Spanish fable about a scarecrow and why crows became black.  You can see it made into a beautiful video here  It is in Spanish with English subtitles.

The artwork is utterly amazing, how they can make a pumpkin-head face go through the gamut of emotions!  The scarecrow is so terribly sad and lonely because he has no friends, and can't understand why, even though he rescues one of the crows (which are all beautifully purple) and nurses it back to life, that blind crow explains that crows can't be his friends because they are supposed to be afraid of scarecrows.  He tries to make friends with a human being, but is suspected of being a demon and chased up into one of the windmills where he is burned by an angry mob.  The blind crow he saved tells all the other crows about him being a good scarecrow, and they all feel sorry for him but can't save him.  In the morning they go to the windmill when everything is just a burnt ruin, and take the ashes of the scarecrow and scatter them where they fly all over the world along with the crows, so the scarecrow (called espantapajaros in Spanish, which seems to be a wonderful word) never has to be lonely again, and crows decide to wear mourning and that is why all crows are still black!

So, in a matter of a few minutes, (which you can see by the terrible quality of the artwork) I decided to make a happy scarecrow.

Day 275

Tim shining.

I woke up feeling very depressed about the state of the world and in particular America.  Time for a run!

3.78 km in 29 minutes (7.40 minutes per km, still under 8!).  Had one mishap where I spat and instead of it going neatly to my left on to the grass, it landed on my hand which was flying through the air next to me.  My first thought was "gross!", but after a few seconds I came to terms with it because it is, after all, my own saliva, and so what?

I persuaded Tim there would be plenty to photograph at the beach today, as big constant waves were forecast, which equals many surfers.  He got a few, but not many good ones.

While he went to the rocks at the end of the beach to try for a different angle, I sat and watched the waves with their surfers, all fully clad in wetsuits.  I was trying to build up confidence enough to brave the cold water.  In the end the waves were too inviting to resist, and I went in amongst all the surfers, one of whom looked very pissed off at discovering me sharing his wave, and gave me dirty looks while paddling away to another spot.  I was there first though.  Share the waves, dude!

Eventually I had to leave the heavy breakers and walk out with leaden feet which could have been anything, wooden boards maybe, they certainly didn't feel like feet anymore.  A very cold looking man in a big jacket came up to me and said admiringly that I must be really tough as he had been in for half an hour in a half-suit, and he was still trying to warm up, and didn't I know it was October?  So I showed him my big muscles and felt rather brave.

Tim took this as I was exiting the water looking rather cold and not terribly tough at all. 

Day 274

The boardwalk to my beach.

Kazuo Ishiguro is a brilliant writer.  Matthew is reading A Pale View of Hills for his English class, and I took the book from his sleeping form last night and stayed up until 2 am to finish it.  I can't put it better than this sentence from Wikipedia, of all places, "The story is a suggestive and disturbing one, dwelling on themes of loss, guilt and responsibility. It examines what we know, what we tell, and what we deny about the truth of our own history."  It is one of those books where you can argue about interpretations, certain you are right, but thinking, thinking all the time about the other possibilities.

What we deny about the truth of our own history is sometimes not consciously done.  Occasionally our minds do it for us, they block out certain details that are too painful.  Someone reminded me of an event which happened when I was newly pregnant with Jess, and I actually wracked my brains to find it, but had no recollection of it whatsoever.  Although I was very happy to be pregnant with another baby, it was one of the saddest times of my life, a long drawn-out sadness, but that is it, there are certain things which I can see with the utmost clarity, but others have vanished into the mists of my mind.

My mother, when I reminded her once of what a difficult teenager I had been, and how I had worried her so much, said with sincerity, "Oh go on, you weren't that bad."  And when I looked at her to see if she was being serious, she was.  I asked her to remember certain times, and she honestly couldn't, was quite perplexed.  Our wonderful mother/child relationship, and then our amazing adult relationship, had taken precedence.  She just chose to forget that I had ever hurt her.  Or her mind chose for itself.

Every story we tell is completely subjective, what we remember depends on the kind of people we are, what we notice, even what sex we are.  I will say to Tim, "Amazing what striking green eyes she had," and he will respond, "Her eyes were green?"  (Although we all know the reason he didn't notice her eyes was probably because he was looking elsewhere.)

Siblings, telling of a family event where they were all present, sometimes have such widely differing accounts that you can barely believe it is the same story they are supposedly telling.  Husbands and wives can become quite heated with one another because their remembered versions of the same occasion differ so much.

I had such a lovely teaching day.  My delightful seventh grade classes are beginning to design a repeat pattern, or tessellation, which they will do as a block print.  It is quite a difficult concept, to realise that everything you put on your rectangular design must correspond with the four blocks around it, and there were several of those moments, those wonderful moments, when suddenly a child understands completely how it is supposed to work.  The light in the eyes! 

One particularly sparkly girl dropped her ruler, and as I was passing, asked me to pick it up for her.  I said, "How old are you?  And how old am I?  Who do you think should pick up the ruler?"  While she was reaching to pick it up she said, "I am 12, and you are about 35?"  So I laughed as I replied, "Oh no, I'm older than that!"  To which she responded, "Oh, do you have kids already?  Well, then maybe you're 42?"  So I said, "Well, my oldest daughter is 31."  At which she looked utterly shocked and said, "Well, you don't look your age at all!"  Which all warmed the cockles of my heart, even though 12 year old children are remarkably useless at guessing adults' ages, we are all just "old" to them.

Tim took this as a long exposure but I blinked, so the eye has a creepy appearance.

Day 273

Nick flying.

If running can be thought of as falling forward a little with each step and then catching yourself before you fall, then I fell forward and caught myself for 5.23km this morning, in 41 minutes, which is a rate of 7 mins 50 seconds per km.  Yay!  The elusive 5km.  And the elusive under-eight-minute km.  And it felt fairly easy really, because I set my mind on 5km, and wouldn't let myself stop after 3 circuits or 4 circuits.  And every time I felt my steps slacking off I made sure I spurred on my sky-blue shoes, felt my braid swishing my elbows, and sang the rhythm a little faster in my head.

My sister had to deal with the deaths of my parents all by herself.  My brother and I went out from our respective countries to see them and be with them before they died, but left before the actual end of each life.  It is nearly three years since my dad died, and nearly five since my mother's death, so strange to think that they are not there anymore, in their little cluttered house, my mother with cupboards full of sewing and needlework projects she would never have the time to finish, my father with a garage chock-a-block full of tools, wood, pieces of metal and parts of engines which might perhaps come in handy one day.  They were both squirrels by nature, and as a result of their early lives.

So my sister, the eldest, and therefore the most accountable by birthright, had to be the one who was there at the end, who participated in their final weeks, who was responsible for informing her siblings, who organised the funerals, sorted through all the belongings, decided what to keep and what to give away, and although she did not inherit the cluttered part of their natures, she now has all these boxes taking over a large part of her house, waiting to be sorted into shares if and when my brother and I so wish.  I hold her in high esteem, for all these reasons and more.

She put some of their ashes together and buried them at the Wall of Remembrance outside the little old thatched-roof chapel which was the first Anglican church in Pinelands, before they built the huge ugly brick St Stephen's church just next door.  My parents went to church when they were young and although they slacked off and doubted in the way of many older people, they always had an affinity for their roots, as one does, I suppose.  She kept some of their ashes for my brother and I, and we were going to be together to scatter them for my brother's sixtieth birthday, but my sister couldn't make it because she broke her ankle.

So I have this big brown envelope in which are two little plastic bags containing the ashes of my parents.  They are on one of the shelves of Tim's and my little walk-in closet in our attic bedroom, tucked away at the back.  And every now and then, searching for a top I haven't worn in a while, I come across them, and am suddenly immersed in tides of feelings.  I gaze at them, put my hand in to feel them, my dad blacker, my mum with more browns, which is probably a result of the different heat rates in the crematorium, I would think, it can't be that men and women are different colours, can it?

I had always thought that it would be ash, like you scrape out from our woodstove, soft ash, but it's not, it is gritty, bits and pieces, and my dad's has an inch-long piece of bone in it, the only shard from that giant's body, that great strong person who made me with his body and my mother's, with pleasure, with love, with surprise when they learned that I had taken hold in her uterus, another child, so late, a laat-lammetjie, a late lamb.

And each time I am shaken by grief, by their absence in my life, by that terrible and utter loss.  They are no more.  Their warm and loving selves have been reduced to this little cold bag of grit.  And I miss them with my whole being.

A sort of angel/ballerina/crow-dancer tonight.  (after Degas)

Day 272

Beautiful day, beautiful beach.

The temperature was deliciously warm today, 80F (26C) and the water was not too bad either, so I swam and swam, catching wave after wave, although they were not strong, and only went halfway into shore, so I had to employ all my skills to catch them. The water was clear as the Caribbean, and I laughed at the little silver fish darting before me as I rode a wave. Making my way back out to the big waves, I observed two larger fish leap right out of the water in front of me.  I wondered what they were racing from, and then a dark cormorant surfaced nearby, in the act of swallowing one of their compatriots.

Two men came out after I had been in for a while, with their boards too, but they were both useless, poor lambs, and of course they would never have asked me how it was done, being men, and I couldn't give them pointers, being a woman and knowing that they would think me facetious, or superior, or flirty, or something negative, such is the complexity of relations between the sexes.  One was too scared to come all the way out to where the waves broke, but the other came way out and I caught him watching me carefully.  He never did catch a wave, and when I finally went out he followed me out, just giving up, I took away all his potential luck.

An elderly woman came up the beach past me and went up to her husband sitting in his chair.  I saw her asking him to come into the sea with her, and he protested that he had no swimsuit.  From her gestures I could see that she said he should just go in up to his thighs, and she knelt carefully down and tenderly rolled up the legs of his khaki shorts for him.  Then helped him out of his shirt, and off they went, his figure bent, hers much straighter, but both very old.  At the water, she waded in until her body was fully submerged, except for her head, which never got wet, her hair still perfectly coiffed.  While he waded in until his ankles, then waded back out on to dry sand where he stood and watched her cavorting happily.  Perhaps she had just needed someone to watch her, to share in her delight.  When she was finished, they walked back up to their chairs where they sat, facing one another, an unusual pattern of chairs, her feet up on his chair, chatting happily away.  When I went home they were also packing up and he turned to me on the path with his old bent back, and his soft old cheeks, and said, "Another day in paradise, hm?"
 
I read a wonderfully disgruntled quote today about the meaning of life, in an amazing book called The Elegance of the Hedgehog.
"Indeed, what constitutes life?  Day after day, we put up the brave struggle to play our role in this phantom comedy.  We are good primates, so we spend most of our time maintaining and defending our territory, so that it will protect and gratify us; climbing - or trying not to slide down - the tribe's hierarchical ladder, and fornicating in every manner imaginable - even mere phantasms - as much for the pleasure of it as for the promised offspring.  Thus we use up a considerable amount of our energy in intimidation and seduction, and these two strategies alone ensure the quest for territory, hierarchy and sex that gives life to our conatus.  But none of this touches our consciousness.  We talk about love, about good and evil, philosophy and civilization, and we cling to these respectable icons the way a tick clings to its nice big warm dog."

She goes on to say that it is Art that saves us.  The pursuit of Art in all its forms.  Yes!

I ran 2.8 miles, (4.5km) at 7.33 minutes per km, an improvement!  Although the run was a series of mishaps: a) a frog made a stunning sideways leap away from my right foot as I was about to trample him!  I was glad I didn't kill it, but it gave me an enormous fright, a little cry escaping from my lips! 
b) The next circuit I raised a bump on the top of my head by misjudging the ducking of said head under a fallen tree across my path, which has been there for about two months already!
c) And I miscounted the laps, so that I thought I had run 5km, and when I tried to make it after I had discovered it was only 4, I couldn't actually get to 5, the best I could do was half a km!

Self-portrait on beach with pregnant woman in distance. 

Day 271

Arches.

Another image from the George's Island trip. 

I woke up from such a strange, strange dream this morning, and felt quite odd and out of sorts all day, like I didn't belong.  A 7th grade boy, a little boy, is having problems at school with his work and his socialisation, and I felt great empathy with him, although I could do nothing to comfort him.

Two images for tonight.

The village.

Highland dancer.

Day 270

These are two herring gulls I saw yesterday on George's Island.  I was fascinated to see that each of them had a constant drip of water from the beak.  Seagulls are one of the few land animals that can drink salt water.  They have a special gland above their eyes which basically separates and excretes the salt, and this is then secreted from the nostrils in a fluid, hence the dripping bill. 

Apparently herring gulls were hunted nearly to extinction in the 1800's, but they survived and have become very successful, and are considered pests by many people, the "rats" of the beach.

My mother loved seagulls though, and so she passed on that love to me.  (I also confess to loving pigeons).  Sometimes we would go, as a treat on a wintry Sunday afternoon, to Greenpoint to feed the seagulls all the old bread my mother had saved up during the week, and if we didn't have any old bread my dad would buy a half-loaf with which to feed them.  I could stand next to the car and hold up the bread in my hand, and some of them were bold enough to take it right out from my fingers.  My dad loved to throw bits of bread and watch them swoop and scoop them out of the air.  It was thrilling and we were all three enchanted by these beautiful sleek creatures of the sea and the wind.

When my parents came to visit us in Winthrop where we first lived, on coming to America, I took them to our nearby beach one grey afternoon with two canvas chairs so they could sit down, for they were already very old, and I gave them bread which they threw to the gulls, and this time it was my turn to look after them, to carry the chairs, to help my mother with her walking stick, to watch them, to take a photograph so that I could look once again at these two most beloved old people when I remembered them today.

I ran 4km today, and could have run longer, but for my stupid green socks which were down the backs of my shoes, and the fact that I was utterly soaked through from beating a path through sodden goldenrod, grass slick with raindrops, and a gentle drizzle.  My path was almost dry by the third circuit, as all the water had been absorbed by my sky-blue spongy shoes, my awful green socks, my trousers, and probably my skin itself!

It took me 35 minutes, so still not good, but at least I know I can still run 5km, it is not beyond me.  Maybe Wednesday will be my next 5km!

I am so so tired tonight, so instead of a drawing, here is an interesting photograph of me in one of those old rooms in Fort Warren on George's Island, me and my ghost.

Day 269

Tim at the window.

I went to George's Island with Tim and two other photographic friends from the Camera Club.  I hadn't been to the Harbour Islands in nine years, and suddenly I have been twice in the space of two months!  Fort Warren is a very atmospheric place, with deep patches of chiaroscuro and lovely frames within frames in the vast expanses of brick, stone and wooden halls and rooms which were used to house soldiers, cannons and anything else required in a fort.  The other three had a photographic assignment to pursue, which was the frames within frames.  This is my take on it.  You can see Tim's one here. 


The weather has suddenly cooled down, after two beautiful warm days, positively hot, in fact, and today we had fair weather with wispy swathes of white on blue as we left the harbour, and the sky grew steadily more grey and overcast, the wind ever stronger, so that on the boat on the way back, everyone shuffled into the warm closed-in cabin part of the ferry, only one little girl and I braved the bow of the boat, holding on to the railing while we rode the swells like dolphins. 

It was a grand day, Tim asked me to model and I had to do various things, like run and twirl and sit sombrely on a windowsill, and some of the pictures are lovely, even though, as I pointed out to them, the model is of an advanced age!

This boat created some lovely waves for us.  I love all the black, white and grey horizontal lines.




Shades of Orange - seen while walking up through the city to catch our (Orange-Line) train.

Sometimes you think that you are very busy doing something, like cooking, or checking your email, or writing your blog, like right now, when a little old cat comes strolling purposefully towards you, her body wasted, her once perfectly calico coat now blobbed with matting in places, her eyes big green lights in her bony little face, her back legs threatening collapse at each turn.  And you realise that there is nothing more important at that particular moment, than squatting down and stroking the 'rosary of bone' which is her spine, the soft ears which love to be rubbed, and the chin, under which you gently scratch and scratch, for the simple reward of the eyes closed, ecstatic expression of a very old soul, who will not always be here.

Day 268

The woodpile Tim and I packed today. 

On Thursday, Matt, our friendly woodman, who resembles Mark Wahlberg, delivered our first cord of wood for the winter.  He also sawed up two fallen trees and, just like that, felled two dead trees that he noticed and sawed them up too, a whole extra cord of wood for us!

A good woodpile gives you a great sense of achievement !  There is an art to it, and this is the first year that we didn't have any collapses, so we must be becoming New Englanders!  It is a communal effort, and when the woodpile extended behind the little old woodpile of what remains from last year, it made sense for one person to stand behind the pile and pack, so Tim threw me logs which I then stacked.  I only crushed my thumb once, with a particularly heavy oak piece. 

Afterwards we surveyed our work proudly, and while we were eating a late lunch I felt so happy and grateful that I am still able to do this heavy work, fairly easily, with my big hands for managing large chunks of wood, my good strong legs which had run 2.3 km in 17 minutes prior to the packing, and my limber body for bending and lifting, bending and lifting.

A pastel selfie for tonight, which is what the photographers call it. 

Day 267

Butter and eggs (Linaria vulgaris) Toadflax.

This little plant has flowers which look like snapdragons, but it is unrelated.  It is an exotic from Asia originally, via Europe, and the flower looks a bit like an egg sunny-side up in a pan of butter.  It can apparently be used as a laxative, if you make a kind of steeped potion from it. They often make me smile when I see them because of their common name.

Last night we went to the boys' school for open house for the last time.  It is so strange to think of all these last things this year will hold.  The last time they'll be the stars of the swim team, the last prom, the last year they will be scholars, which is what school students used to be called. 

When I enter a classroom and have to sit at a desk, I have an immediate and irrepressible urge to rebel, to do wicked things.  I think I loathed school from the second day of 1st grade, when they put me into 2nd grade.  By the time I reached grade 10 I was skipping school on a regular basis.  It was perfect because the train tracks ran right past the back entrance to the school, which you reached down a long overgrown path.  Close to the subway, or in the subway itself, you would often come across "Wobbles" a man who frequently exposed himself to us schoolgirls, who, if we were in a group, would roar with laughter, but if we were alone, which we were never meant to be, we would hurry on by, not quite sure about the validity of the theory that men who expose themselves like that are harmless. (The subway was quite literally the tunnel under the railway, through which you reached the other side of the station, not a subway in the American sense of the word as underground trains)

I would ride into the city and sometimes go to a movie at the Monte Carlo, an old movie theatre on the Foreshore in Cape Town.  But there were often dirty old men at those matinees, who would move seats closer and closer until they were sitting right next to you when they would proposition you with unmentionable things, at which you would be obliged to shake off their groping hands and run out into the brisk southeaster which blew everything clean.

Every Thursday morning the Cape Town Symphony Orchestra practised in the City Hall, and I was often in that sparse audience of regulars, a free concert, when I could watch my idol, the Swiss conductor Peter Perret, who was the principal guest conductor for two years.  I remember feeling sorry for him because he had to leave his Vietnamese wife at home, as under our Immorality Law, their union was immoral and unlawful.  

Sometimes I would just walk up Adderley Street to the Gardens, and go and watch the birds in the huge aviaries for a while, feed the squirrels, and then just sit and read, taking up a park bench like a bergie or a bag-lady for a few hours.

I was nearly expelled a number of times, but my poor parents managed to talk the principal down each time, and tried to make me promise to be good, and I really did want to, I just found myself like the proverbial square peg in a round hole, or whatever it is, school being the only place in the whole world where I did not want to be.

I have taken care not to tell my children these stories, so that they would not repeat my behaviour, but my last children are in their last year and go to a lovely school, and they are good boys like their dad.

And then I became a teacher!  Go figure.

I doodled on my demonstration piece for the Paul Klee inspired grade 7 project. 

Day 266

Diaphanous milkweed seeds tumbling out of their pod.

Periodically in our family, we write messages for one another on the large mirror in the bathroom, using soap as the writing tool. 

The other day I wrote HANG UP YOUR TOWELS!  Because, even though, over the years, I have managed to teach my sons several good life lessons, hanging up the towel after a shower is not one of them.

The next evening, lying in the bath, I noticed that the message now read HANG UP YOUR BOWELS!, courtesy of Matthew (probably).

I erased the B and replaced it with a big fat T, and went off to bed laughing.

The next development was that the big T was erased, and a phrase added below, so that it now read: HANG UP YOUR OWELS  They're living beings

My response: HANG UP YOUR VOWELS!   There is only one in OWLS!

This morning "VOWELS! There is only one in" had been erased, so that it now stated: HANG UP YOUR                  OWLS!

So I drew an image of an owl, with a little speech bubble enclosing, once more, HANG UP YOUR TOWELS!  And below, leading up to the word OWLS, "Listen to the".

And I hid the soap.

Tonight there is my drawing of an owl, next to it, a blank space, and below it, just: Listen to the OWLS.

I ran 2.09 miles (3.36km) in 29 minutes.  Which is 8.37 minutes per km, probably similar to some people's walking speed!  Anyway, I try to make sure, as I run over the increasingly leaf-strewn forest floor, that I bounce along, that I'm not just trudging, but that my heels go up in the air each time, and when I feel my braid swishing each elbow, I know I am running correctly. 

Today I wondered how I ever ran 5km though!  3.5km is hard enough!  But Molly and I trundle through the tall-grassed meadow, still rife with white butterflies, and yesterday I saw a monarch, which I imagined might have been the metamorphosis of my little coughing caterpillar. My last hummingbird was on Sunday, she looked quite confused, rifling through the Rose of Sharon flowers and then coming up to the window feeder which contains only sunflower seeds for all the small titmouses, chickadees, nuthatches, and today, a downy woodpecker!

Tonight, a collage I made as a card for my friend.