Day 345

William Kentridge, the South African artist, is a genius.

I spent two hours in an exhibition today and was finally dragged away by Nick.

Kentridge is exactly the same age as I am, had a similar upbringing in South Africa, but he has made his fortune with art.  The most versatile of artists, he does theatre, opera, animated film, and images like etchings and sugar-lift with drypoint.  The example here is a sugar-lift.

In an interview, Kentridge said, "We have an uneasy relationship to our bodies. John Updike refers to us as “the herders of our bodies, which are beasts as dumb and bald and repugnant as cattle.” We prod them along, hoping they will not suddenly go off on their own, leap a fence, wander onto the highway."  The last sentence by Kentridge is funny, but I don't find cattle repugnant, they are rather beautiful, ambling along with those big eyes and calm demeanours, dotting the green fields, grazing, as though nothing else mattered.

He uses his own body as a model most of the time, because he needs a reference for gestures,  for the "folds of flesh which are difficult to predict" which I was pleased to hear because I am the same!  I always had the idea that true artists should be able to draw anything from their imaginations, like one of my 12th grade students, who is absolutely brilliant, drawing anything at all, and everything in perspective always.  But Kentridge requires a model constantly, and because his film work is stop-motion, he would have to have a model on hand almost all the time.  He discovered that charcoal drawing, which is generally used as a preface to a painting, was the perfect medium for stop-motion, because instead of drawing a whole vast number of drawings, which is generally the case within this medium, he only has a few, on which he erases (he called it "rubbing-out, which made me smile at this old South Africanism from my childhood, when erasers were still called 'rubbers') and re-draws continually, leaving interesting marks that add to the movement, e.g. a paper flying off in the wind down the street, obviously leaves a faint trail of each drawn location on the page, as though the paper itself had left its own flight pattern in the air for a brief moment.  

While I sat and watched six of his short films in rapt attention, several people came and went beside me on the bench.  Every single one lost interest after a couple of minutes and reached for their cellphones, then sat and texted someone, or checked for mail, or whatever!  I wanted to ring their necks, or at the very least throw their phones to the ground and stomp them to pieces!  The attention-span of a goldfish, that's what we are working towards with all this technology that runs our lives, we are slaves to the machine!

Just yesterday I received my phone back from Matthew, who was lucky enough to get a brand new one, about which he is very happy.  I barely missed the thing.  There was only one time when I really could have used a phone, but even that time didn't really matter in the grand scheme of things. 

 I missed everyone today, some days the missing part of your heart is very tender, as though someone had punched you hard in the chest, and the feelings well up in your eyes at inopportune moments, as an old song comes lilting through the car-radio, while you are driving on the highway with your perplexed son sitting next to you.  John Lennon's Happy Christmas (War is Over), Jessica's favourite song at the age of three, takes you back to the very place and time and emotion, Jess strolling around in that very self-contained way of hers, little blonde plaits, in dresses I had sewn for her myself, in the almost constant company of Mungo Jerry, her kitten.  Such a surge of love and longing goes through me, it takes everything I have to stay on the road, to focus on what is right in front of me.

So tonight my own typewriter image, an oil painting from long ago, unfortunately not in very good focus.

Day 344

Sky with surfers.

At school ALL day, had to chaperone a dance tonight, all the girls in their beautiful colourful dresses, all the boys in their dark suits and white shirts.  Why is that?  Who decreed that for men to look smart and sexy they should dress up like penguins, and for women to look smart and sexy they should wear as little as possible?

And all this in -4C temps outside, pretty damn cold, even when wearing one of their flimsy coats, with all those long legs sticking out, brrrrrh!  And all the high heels, my "little girls" walking awkwardly in the highest of silly supposedly sexy heels, the world is indeed a funny place.  Are we all just brainwashed into thinking such things are sexy?  Victoria's Secret has subliminal messaging in its commercials?  High heels mess up your feet, give you corns, they change your posture, even your organs can be affected by how they force you to walk, according to some researchers.  Sure, lingerie is sexy, but to wear tight, ill-fitting shoes makes as much sense as Chinese foot-binding.

And the three chaperones who volunteered because "otherwise they would have to cancel the dance" were the old toppies, the softies, and we had to act like policemen, something foreign to our natures, and be aware always as to possible crimes and misdemeanours which might perhaps be committed on school property  And I am exhausted by all this, so I will hurry off to bed, feeling rather old and tired and decrepit, with my faithful little blue hot-water-bottle for company.

I drew a picture of one of my students drawing this afternoon.  He is probably one of the best students I have ever had, a very gifted and intellectually advanced boy.

Day 343

Four dogs, two reflections.

The dog in the middle is a labradoodle, which is an emerging new breed of dog that is very popular in America, because most of them don't shed as much as labradors, and because poodles and labradors are both highly intelligent, they are able to be trained easily.

So another word enters the English language, "Labradoodle".

In my daily Writer's Almanac, this morning there was a piece on John Milton, who apparently "coined more than 600 words, including the adjectives dreary, flowery, jubilant, satanic, saintly, terrific, ethereal, sublime, impassive, unprincipled, dismissive, and feverish; as well as the nouns fragrance, adventurer, anarchy, and many more."  Amazing - beautiful, powerful words.

The very awful Sarah Palin, like George Bush, is fond of inventing words, like "refudiate", which she apparently used in a recent tweet (another new word-meaning) to stir up anti-Muslim sentiment.  She clearly didn't know it wasn't a real word, although later she compared her invention with that of Shakespeare, another developer of words, which is ludicrous in the extreme, but also has an element of truth to it, as the language does grow by taking words new and old and either swallowing them or spitting them out.

Astronomers have discovered that there are three times as many stars as previously thought, which would also mean a greater probability for life somewhere else.  Titan, one of Saturn's moons, has liquid lakes of ethane.  Although how they know what it is composed of I have no idea.

Japan's little box-shaped space-probe, Akatsuki, which was planned so as to enter Venus' orbit, has shot right past it, missing its chance at taking a ride on the gravitational pull, but the Japanese scientists in charge of it are positive they will have another chance to succeed in six years time, when it will come close to Venus again.

The Milky Way is called different things in different cultures.  In China, a country where they do not generally drink a lot of milk, it is called "The Silver River" which is much more beautiful.  In Wales, it was known as "The Way of Gwydion", who was a mythical trickster and hero.  The name means "born of trees".  How wonderful is that?   A man born from trees, striding across the starry road of heaven with his long limbs waving like branches.  If I wasn't so tired I would draw it right now!

Meandering thoughts, just like my run in the biting cold of this morning (-4C), a cold which seeps into your very bones if you don't keep moving.  I ran just 3.40 km, at 7.50 minutes per km, hard going with that freeze, but slow and steady does it, and after just over one km I even took off my gloves and my hands were glowing and warm, amazing, this body with its blood circulating so well, the heart pumping away, along with the feet, until I am even sweating in the frosty air!

I finished putting together the strips, and now just have to put a flannel backing on to finish it off.  Matthew and Nick are standing behind it attempting to hold it up.  It is quite heavy, I hope not too heavy on us, weighing us down!  Of course it will look much better on the bed when it is complete!

Day 342

Moll's misty breath.

The lungs need to get used to the coldness of the freezing air on a morning like this, when the temperature is a bright and sunny 29F (-1.6C), so the first time up Babbling Brook Hill is falling-down-in-a-heap awful, and then slowly it gets better, so that by the third circuit it is doable, and by the fifth it is not exactly easy, but kind of light, not so burdensome.

The earth is hard beneath my feet, but there are long stretches of springy leaf litter, and in the meadow the grass, although a little crunchy in spots, is a soft layer between my plodding feet and the ground like stone.  Plod, plod, plod... Breathe, breathe, breathe, and then thoughts come and eventually you have forgotten you are running, the thoughts are so interesting that they take over for minutes at a time, and you suddenly find that you have run 5.71 km @ 7 ½ minutes per km.

Such a love/hate relationship you have with the hymns and carols that provide the rhythm for the feet.  All those melodies that you love, all those words that kind of piss you off.  A part of your heritage, a lovely part of your childhood, and yet a part of something you rejected a long time ago.  "Hallelujah, Hallelujah...And peace shall reign forever and ever... and Peace shall reign forever and ever...."  But Peace has never reigned, has it?

And near the bottom of Babbling Brook Hill you notice a squirrel's drey, fallen from a tree, lying on the ground, something slightly different from the other leaves as you run over it.  And yes, you can see where the little tunnel was in the middle where the squirrel once slept warm and snug in its nest of leaves.   And you think that nowadays probably no one actually knows that a squirrel's nest is called a drey.  Except if you are a certain age and you went through the British-based school system of government schooling in South Africa during the 60's. 

My son was very disappointed tonight, and I have that familiar parental feeling of wanting to make it right, wanting to throttle someone responsible.  But I know instead that I can do nothing.  And of course this is how we all learn, how our children learn, to struggle on through despair and disappointments like this, but oh, how I wish to be omnipotent for just one night!

And so I will go to bed in my very cold bedroom, with my little hot-water-bottle, and clasp it to me all night, a poor substitute for my flesh-and-blood husband.  (I don't know if I keep it warm or if it keeps me warm, but I was surprised to find it still vaguely toasty this morning!)  Four more sleeps.

A lonely monoprint - Apple Tree.

Day 341

Vulture, by Chris Williams, an artist with whom Nick is going to do his SCORE project, hopefully.  This project is a kind of apprenticeship which each senior has to do with someone in the real world of business for their last quarter of their last year.  Matthew is doing his with our doctor.

I heard about another kind of year's quest, and saw some of it on WGBH tonight.  The movie is called Alone in the Wilderness, and self-documents Richard Proenneke's quest to spend a year in the Alaskan wilderness with the minimum of supplies and tools, in 1967, at the age of 51.  It is amazing.  He was so resourceful and kept reminding me of my dad, I think my dad could have done everything he did, just from sheer strength and common sense. 

Proenneke was also terribly ill when he was young, which made him determined to be fit and healthy later in life.

He used the wood all around him for everything.  He made a mallet and also made all the handles for his tools like the axe-head etc. so that he wouldn't have to carry so much, as of course it is so much easier to pack and carry tools without handles.  He also made all his kitchen utensils and storage containers.  He built a beautiful log cabin, including wooden hinges for his door.  All his furniture, a bunk bed, chair, table etc, and all this with a  hand-saw, chisels etc, no power-tools at all.  He had to make a fireplace, a toilet, and a storage shed high up, reached by a rickety ladder.

His fridge was a hole in the ground, digging about a foot down until he found frost, then a wooden box snugly fit inside the hole, and all covered with a piece of tin and then finished off with a thick moss covering. He documented his own journey through the year, making daily journal entries and filming himself.  A quote from his journal about a windy day on the lake:  "This lake can really change its personality in a hurry, like a woman, all smiles one minute, and dancing a temper tantrum the next."  He never married.

He remained in his cabin another 35 years, only leaving when he was 82 years old, in 1998, going to join his brother for the last five years of his life.  He left his lovely home to the National Parks Trust. 

He seemed like such a gentle man, a true conservationist, taking pleasure in all the life around him, hunting for his food, but feeling sadness for having to kill the beautiful creatures.  He has amazing footage of animals like the caribou with their strange and awkward antlers, crazy bull moose exfoliating their velvet covered racks, leaving bloody wrappings, like old ripped up clothing, hanging on the old branches etc it has been rubbing its head on.  There are images of a wolverine playing, as it has been discovered many animals do.  The strange and elusive creature had made a kind of slide in the snow down a hill, and was having a wonderful time sliding and rolling down the snowy slope! 

What an incredibly ambitious year's project his was!  I don't think I could have done what he did.  Well, maybe I could have, but I'll just stick to my little run and drawing each day, thinking about the world, feeling elation, outrage, consternation, delight, curiosity, and striving for grace and wisdom.

Tree- monoprint.

Day 340

Black dog on the bridge.

She ran 5.07 km today, 7.27 minutes per km, through the icy air, which stung her bare arms once she had sloughed off all the layers of warm clothing, till they were rosy-red with cold, swinging along, balancing the opposite leg each step of the way.  First hill difficult, second time not so bad, third time a piece of cake.  Good.

As she ran, she counted breaths, sang "Oh Worship the Whale" and thought about all her people, her husband flying through the colder air above the clouds, right across the country to the other side, her daughter on the other side of the world, who was her baby for many years until the boys came along and usurped that position, her other daughter "across the pond", her one son on a field trip in Boston, her other son slogging through the school day, only 4 more months of school left for them. 

And then her thoughts are interrupted by the Neighbour's-Extremely-Stupid-Dog (NESD), who still (after 6 months) thinks that she is the enemy, no matter how many times she has said, "Hello Sam, how're ya doin?" in her best American accent.  So for the last 3 km she is harrassed, every time she comes out of the meadow on to the forest road, by this idiot barker, who runs madly away as she runs towards him, and then sneaks up on her from behind once she has gone by, so that she is afraid he will nip her ankles, and turns around, which scares him, and so, pleased that he is frightened of her, she yells to push the point across, which is not very productive in terms of ever forming a good relationship with the fool, but which makes her feel better as he scoots off, woofing his head off once more!  AAAArgh!  He is allowed to roam at will and so she finds that he has defecated all over her garden, which is most annoying.  Today she observes him attempt to urinate on her jacket which is hanging in a tree, but luckily it is too high and he misses.  She would like to throw rocks at this dog, which is a very bad thought for an animal-lover to have.

An etching inspired by a photograph of Max Born, who along with his student Heisenberg, was responsible for the discovery of quantum mechanics.  He won the Nobel prize in 1954 for his statistical formulation of subatomic particles.  I always loved the image of father and son which I found in Jacob Bronowski's The Ascent of Man, many years ago.

Day 339

Sunlight painting the tops of the trees yesterday evening.

A hard slog today, trudge-jogging up that long steep hill nearly did me in, took me the entire meadow-circuit to recover each time!   A pathetic 3.77 km at 7.57 minutes per km.  Everything bleak, brown and black and bare.  And my soul reflecting all this.

This is a very singy (yes, I just made that word up, nice, isn't it?) time of year.  I have been to three concerts by Nick's a cappella group in the last four days!  Perhaps people always sang a lot to keep their energy and spirits up in the cold grip of winter! 

The a cappella group does an inspired rendition of Fa la la la la (Deck the Halls), which is very funny, with the boys in the group doing their own interpretive dance-walks in a circle around the girls, all the time singing "Fa la la la la la etc. at the tops of their lungs, then ending with each kid holding their hands together in front of them in that very formal singing pose. 





I remember when I was little, going to the Carol Service at my sister's school, where she sang in the choir.  It was an annual event which took place outside in the courtyard, everyone standing on the balconies to watch them, all the girls in their white dresses, or maybe it was their school uniforms, but I seem to remember all those angelic voices coming from a sea of white.  It was always beautiful weather, warm and still, with the last birds doing silent loops and twirls in the sky above, and probably towards the end of the evening, little bats flitting about, along with the stars slow flickering to light, and a scent of jasmine, and everyone hushed by the chorus of perfect sopranos and altos raising their pure voices, the old familiar melodies floating into the air all around us, trailing off into the deepening blue of that South African sky.

And years later I joined that same choir, and proudly took my place on those tiered benches in the alto section.  In 11th grade I carelessly missed two practices, which meant you were instantly expelled from the choir.  I didn't care about much at school by that time, but this one thing I treasured and so I grovelled (something which was in every other aspect of my life completely foreign to me) in front of the very strict, extremely dignified choir teacher, Miss Dosé, the same one who had taught my sister, who eventually gave me another chance, for which I was eternally grateful and respectful.  I remember that she thought about it for a endless moment, giving me one of those long meaningful looks which seem to touch your soul somehow, communicating an understanding, a knowledge of me, of the good person she could see inside the rebellious teenager, and I never let her down again.

Tonight an etching of Faun Bar, the view from our first house here in America, beautiful ocean, wonderful hill with places for boys to make forts, sycamore maples for birds, an Atlantic that warmed up enough for our family to swim in the hot summer that did eventually arrive!  But the big drawback: ugly aeroplanes taking off or coming in to land every few minutes, so close on occasion that we could almost put out our hands and touch them from the deck!

Day 338

My favourite room at the new wing of the Museum of Fine Art.

My black dog and I ran 5.04 km (well, she didn't really run that far, did lots of shortcuts because she had already had an earlier run with Tim).  It was late afternoon, with grey blue-shadowy clouds and the birches shining silver in the gloaming.

An easy run again, at 7.08 minutes per km, lovely cold air pressing against my face and arms, big wide sky and in the west the sun descending, (ixesha abantu bahle) touching the tips of the bare trees of the meadow for a brief moment, a warm soft light, a last goodnight kiss for the earth.  And as we finished our run, the sun dipping down, down below the tree-lined horizon (funny how some words can't do things other words can, like storm and tree, you can say a stormy horizon, but not a treey horizon), the air colder and colder, my breath misty, my cheeks pink, I fell in love with the natural world for the umpteenth time, with the beautiful act of running, with the fact of my good strong hard-working body.

Ellen Day Hale - Self-portrait

At the MFA I realise that I am strongly drawn to portraits, to the human figure, to realism.  I breeze through the abstract galleries, I am disappointed with Georgia O'Keefe's paintings, which are small and flat, nothing like I imagined from the beautiful reproductions in books.  But oh, the portraits of John Singer Sargent, of Whistler, of Andrew Wyeth, of Ellen Day Hale, of Larry Rivers, are so beautiful, I stand rapt before them.  As Scott Prior, author of one of the paintings I love (the one to the left of the sculpture in the first photograph), says in his artist's statement, "I get a lot of satisfaction out of creating an illusion of reality, turning something that was once white canvas into an illusion of trees or a chair or a person.  Up close you know it's a painting, but from a distance there is an effect of reality."  Ellen Day Hale looks so bolshie, doesn't she?  Wonderful!

Me and my creations.

A whole day of art, in fact, because this evening we attend a function at G-studios in Dorchester, where the owner does event shows for local artists, so tonight was for Imprevue, a magazine begun by a poet-teacher inviting a collective of artists and poets affiliated with Ecole Internationale.  There was a poetry reading and some of us had our paintings and creations on the walls, lovely and warm and good music and many languages being spoken!

Day 337

Clouds with meadow.

The last hour at school there were just two kids, and while we were cleaning up at the end, the shorter one, (who is actually the same height as I am now!) asked me if I thought she could leap up and touch a beam.  I said that yes, probably she could.  The other student is taller so it was easy for her.  Shorty bounded up, jumped, and yes, she touched it! 

Then they challenged me!  I protested that I would not be able to, so Shorty said, "But you're the same height as I am!"  and I responded, "Yes, but I'm much older than you!" (and heavier, I thought silently).  "Pfhhhh!  That's no excuse!" they goaded me, and so I tried, and failed.  Then I took a few running leaps and on the fourth try I made it!  They were so proud of me!  So we spent about 10 minutes running back and forth seeing who could touch the beam and I felt about 14 years old!

So due to a variety of reasons, involving a long wild goose chase and much driving in circles, I only got home really late and so tonight a very quick image of me jumping.

Day 336

Molly of the large tongue.

This is how we both feel after the run.  

Well, after running my best time a few days ago, today my pace was 8.43 minutes per km for 4.9 km, which is probably my worst time!  It is only very occasionally that I experience that flying feeling runners speak of, where the endorphins kick in and you float along like a piece of music. 

In the morning the whole big beautiful day spreads out before you, like a canvas ready and primed, all your options wide open, sunny.  But you soon find that there are already so many things which have to be done which fill it up in no time, and in fact it becomes over-crowded so that some things have to be set aside overnight and deposited on the new canvas of the next morning.

I noticed that the flowers Tim gave me yesterday have the most wonderful scent, and all day they gave me pleasant surprises with their slow opening in the warmth of the house. There are lilies and real roses into which you can pour your nose to your heart's content, sniffing that sweet rosy smell.

I went to an a cappella concert in which Nick was singing this evening, put on by the H.E.A.R.T association in Manchester, which was started by a group of mothers with gay children 5 years ago.  It stands for Honouring Equality, Acceptance, Respect and Tolerance.  Which is wonderful.  As one of their fliers mentions, when a 19 year old kid came out to his mother, he said, ""Mom, you need to know that I would never choose to be part of a population where half the world wants you dead.  This not a choice I have made.  This is who I am."

And of course I have personal experience of this as my first husband was gay, and is, of course, still gay.  And he knew he was gay when he was eight years old.  It is not something he chose either.  

And I think our encounter is like any other hard life lesson, you suffer through the relationship and all the sadness it brings, but afterwards you are more knowledgeable on the subject of homosexuality, you are more tolerant, (and you have two gorgeous daughters without whom you could not actually live), and so you have gained so much that really, what good would regret or recrimination do for you?  And it allows for the growth of magnanimity and an amicable ending.  And the very fact of this marriage just shows how strongly people want to conform to society, that many men still get married to women because the alternative is, even in this day and age, (isn't that a lovely phrase?) still not accepted by so many ignorant and stupid people.

Nick's school a cappella group, SoundWaves, is magnificent, the pure notes rush out of those mouths and curl into our ears, pleasure fills our hearts and tears well up in our eyes.

These are the base and tenor singers.  Nick is the tall fair one whose hair is too long.

Day 335 (one more month for my quest!)

 Crazy wedding photograph.

We went and swept the girls up from their schools, said, "We're getting married!", met our two good friends who acted as witnesses, I held a bouquet-stalk of eucalyptus flowers, the magistrate asked this very long question which I couldn't quite understand, but I thought, "No would be a very negative thing to say at a marriage ceremony, so it must be Yes" and this proved right, and Tim said "Yes" too, when asked the same elongated question, and there we were, husband and wife on a piece of paper, although we had considered one another as life partners for the last five years, and I had vowed, at the age of 26, never to marry again!

It happened for the most unromantic reason, because when we bought 16 Cross Street, our beloved 16 Cross Street, it was in my name as I received a good housing subsidy from the Education department.  After going back to study Computer Science at Rhodes, Tim was offered a great job there and the subsidy was even better with the university, but to transfer the house to belong to him and I, seemed to require taking an arm and a leg from each of us, it was that complicated, but if we just got that little piece of paper from the City Hall, all was forgiven and it was just the matter of two signatures! 

I remember the first time I felt glad to be married, which happened a couple of years later when I had landed in the hospital with asthma, and a nurse called, "Mrs Bouwer, Mrs Bouwer, and I thought, "Oh yes, that's me, isn't it." and felt all warm and fuzzy for some reason.

So today is 26 years that we have been together, in laughter and sadness, through thick and thin, enduring sickness and experiencing health, from the country of our hearts to the "land of the free",  and I am still glad, still very happy every night to go to bed with this man, to ease into sleep entwined in his arms, to float away.  And in the mornings there he is, bright and smiling, like a wonderful Christmas present every day.

This is how we looked when we met Tim at the beginning of 1984.  He (and probably everyone else) thought of me as "that crazy, passionate hippy woman from Cape Town with the two little girls."

When we first arrived in Grahamstown, the nanny I had interviewed and engaged in December failed to appear and, being new in town and knowing no one I could leave them with at short notice, I had to take the two girls with me to meet the headmaster, the extremely conservative Mr Dreyer. 

Jess sat happily on my lap, and Emma next to me, as I earnestly introduced myself and explained why the girls were with me but that it would in no way intrude on the day's proceedings etc., and how wonderful it was to be working at a big modern school like this one etc, and as I watched, Mr Dreyer's face grew more and more incredulous, so I went off in raptures about how I had loved teaching at Jongilanga near East London, etc.  I couldn't understand what was causing his face to go red and his veins begin to bulge in his temple, when I looked down beside me to find Emma completely naked!  She had glimpsed her swimsuit in my basket next to the chair and decided that it would be a good idea to put it on, seeing as how it was so hot!

So I tried to finish sewing together knitted strips for a woollen blanket to go on our bed, the gift for our anniversary, but we had a major power outage for a few hours which set me back somewhat (I know, I wouldn't have finished it anyway) so three strips out of 14 are now sewn neatly together, and it looks quite good!  The first gift I ever gave Tim was a patchwork quilt for his bed, when we were still best friends, not yet lovers.

I ran 4.04 km today, until I began to feel a little odd and parched, realising I had not had any water or honey, which I usually take before a run if I haven't yet had breakfast, to sustain me.  Thought I was running well, but it turns out to have been at a rate of 7.40 minutes per km, so not that good.  Beautiful wet misty day though.

Day 334

Splatter-painting - seventh grade "Primary People".

These sculptures evolve by first making the skeleton from a wire armature, then putting on muscles with masking tape, and finally the skin of papier maché.  They all somehow turn out to resemble Giacometti maquettes, long skinny creatures, figures supposedly in motion.

You can't really rely on 12 and 13-year olds to not get carried away with throwing paint around, or to put a sheet of paper on the table so that it covers the entire table, can you?  So we ended up with splatters of red, yellow and blue paint all over several chairs, and the floor all around the two painting tables was a wonderful mixture, into which one intrepid child who volunteered to "clean up" happily danced around with bare feet, then asked me to give her permission to go barefoot "pieds nus" (feet that are nude), for the rest of the day, seeing as she could never put her shoes back on those filthy feet again.

So I called the receptionist to ask the janitor to bring me a mop.  She exclaimed, "Oh dear!", without even knowing what it was for, and when the janitor arrived he tutted and fumed at the state of the floor, even though I had said all I wanted was to borrow a mop!  Art is messy, and learning to clean up is surely a good thing for kids.  (The janitor is actually a lovely man, compared to the last one we had, whose veins bulged whenever he had anything to do with me!  He really had a passionate distaste for all things arty, for any sign of a free spirit.)

At the end of the day, I was sitting working at the computer, when the janitor came in with the woman in charge of the night-cleaning crew, who expressed her horror at the state of the floor by clasping her hand to her mouth and remaining speechless for several seconds.  The paint was all cleaned up, but there was still a layer here and there of greasy charcoal from the elementary school students after our mopping.  After she had composed herself she said that she would have to talk to the grounds supervisor because it takes much longer to clean the floor when it is like this.  So no doubt we will be in trouble with the grounds supervisor.  I felt like a naughty school-girl.  Artists are just so misunderstood!

The New England Aquarium has built an entire new wing to accommodate sick and stranded sea animals, and just in time, as 135 sea turtles have been washed up on Cape Cod in the last couple of weeks, 100 of which were still alive.  They suffer from hypothermia, having somehow lost their way while on migration and finding themselves in very cold seas.  The aquarium workers slowly raise their temperatures over a couple of days, treat them and in a few weeks they will be taken back to their migratory route and released in the warmer currents. 

"The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated." - Mahatma Gandhi.

Day 333 (ooh!)

Sweeping sunset.

In the morning, it is 31F (0.5C), so...
Pedometer - check.
Balaclava - check.
Hoodie - check.
Lovely new green down jacket - check.
Gloves - check.
Music in my head - check.
Space available for free-flowing thoughts - check.
Stretching exercises - check.
Run up and down Babbling Brook Hill five times - check.
Jump over fallen tree into meadow - check.
Greet meadow, which wags with all its grassy tails - check.
Run five circuits over the crunchy, frost-white ground, the earth hard and unyielding beneath my feet, my mind singing, counting, thinking - check. 
Run one extra circuit to collect jacket hanging on Pin-oak, which stands proudly with the green jacket in its branches, pretending it has leaves - check.


Discover that I have run 5.86 km, at 6.18 minutes per km, my best speed yet!


A thought which took up a lot of space and time was about dragons, wishing they really existed, after watching How to Train your Dragon last night, which we all loved!

Dragon myths exist in many cultures, and there is an interesting difference between those of the East and those of the Western World.  In Eastern images of dragons, they are large serpent-like creatures, but in the European tradition they have bat-like wings. 


It is now believed that dragon myths evolved from the discovery of dinosaur fossils. There is documentation of one of these discoveries in China in 300 B.C.  How wonderful, to imagine this creature they had never seen, these giant bones, this reptilian skull.   In the movie we saw last night there were hundreds of different types of dragons, beautifully imagined and drawn, one of which looked like a puffer-fish with wings, the main character "Night Fury", a little bit like Stitch of Lilo and Stitch fame. 

Fantasy novels are filled with dragons.  I love Ursula LeGuin's creatures, and Anne McCaffrey's beautifully imagined world of human and dragon interconnection in her Dragonriders of Pern is one of my favourite series of books.   And I loved the 'dragons' in Avatar. 

Sitting on the couch in front of the fire with Matthew this evening doing more college application stuff, I was talking about how lovely it would be to ride a dragon, and he displayed great disbelief in my dragon-riding abilities.  I was slightly indignant, as he justified his conviction with the fact that I won't even go on a roller-coaster.  So I responded, "Well, a dragon is not a roller-coaster, is it?  A dragon is a real creature, and my dragon would do exactly as I said."  To which he replied, "Oh, ok, yes, I can just see you on your dragon, 'Not too high, not too fast, ok, slow down, little dragon!' and there you would be, moving at a ridiculous pace for a dragon, everyone else hurtling down cliffs and up mountains, and mom all dignified and unhurried." 

So here is my little drawing for the day, a little friendly blue dragon, with a horse's head, a fat little cow-like body, bat-wings and a long primaeval tail.  A slow and stately dragon.  (But she is also brilliant at cliff-diving, better than the red-wing starlings at the Mary and Martha mesas near Tarkastad.)

Day 332

Molly and Milkweed pod.

It is a strange fact that Running gives me energy for the whole day. (And yes, it has a capital letter because it has attained a certain status!) Yesterday we only got out of bed at about 10.45 in the morning, and the day just sauntered along until it was suddenly dark, and I hadn't run, and by about 7 o'clock I was absolutely exhausted! 

Today I ran again after two days' rest, 5.17 km, at a rate of 7.44 minutes per km, which is quite slow as it was hard going in the beginning.  But then lovely, as your feet plod along the familiar trail, and thoughts are freed into the air, so many, remembering your dreams of the night before, thinking of your children one by one, giving each one due attention, looking back at last night's conversations, planning your day, this Sunday, the last day of the lovely long Thanksgiving 5-day weekend.

To my pleasant surprise, Matthew has written about the importance of Reading for one of his college essays.   The college essay is a very important part of the application process, and several colleges give their own topics for the prospective student to follow.  This topic was something to do with some issue of importance to you and perhaps to your generation. 

And reading is so dear to my heart, it is part of my heart, part of my being, I am who I am because of reading, I learned to read at such a young age that I thought I was born being able to read! 

Books took me through the long hours of asthma attacks, spent sitting up in my bed, my lamp the only one shining in the deep night.  (The librarian at the primary school thought I was lying because I took out a new book every day, as we were only allowed one at a time.  She became so angry with me that I was sent off to the headmistress, who listened to my story with raised eyebrows.  She had the terrifying habit of talking with her teeth closed.  She eventually telephoned my mother who confirmed my story, and I was allowed to leave, having missed an entire school period while these silly so-called educators argued about whether I had read a book or not!.)

Books were my best companions when my siblings had left home and I became an only child. 

When I went away to university, our train broke down somewhere in the middle of the Karroo and I had to drag my luggage about a km to the bus which picked us up eventually.  Said luggage consisted of a small suitcase of clothes, and a massive brown leather case filled with what felt like bricks, by the end of the journey, but which were actually all my favourite books that I had not been able to leave behind. 

I still always have one in my bag, just in case I break down somewhere, or have to wait someplace.  At the checkout counter in the supermarket I am the only person in the long line reading a book from my bag, not one of the magazines on the strategically placed racks.

So the essay made me very happy and is also rather good, encompassing how reading promotes imagination and creativity and all the things which go into making a whole person!

Tonight I made vegetable pie for dinner, using up everything I had in the fridge, including butternut squash, broccoli florets, green beans etc.  The boys are passionately fond of my vegetable pie, but laughingly complained about the different textures, of all the things they would not usually choose to eat, and the lack of some kind of meat in the pie, which would make it "just a perfect vegetable pie", teasing me mercilessly, as only a mother's sons can do, their wide smiles making me laugh, such good-natured joking creating a warm little sun of familial contentment in which we all basked as we ate our meal.

Day 331

Winter Goldenrod.

This plant and goldfinches are misnamed in winter, when they both go dun-brown and grey. 

I went for a long ramble through all the meadows today with the black dog, clambering over stone walls, blundering through the trip-wires of bittersweet, and getting hooked by buckthorn tendrils, so that my coat has another few little nicks in it, where the small white down feathers sneak out at times.

The sun shone sharply on the bare branches, and in the little Milkweed glade the shining silky seeds hung precariously on their pods, looking for the perfect gust on which to fly away.

Or floated diaphanously on the currents of air while others decorated the stark stalks of what is left of the the Mullein plants.

Everywhere I saw the little stars threaded through dusky leaves and dried-out stems.

 I was going to run this afternoon but you have to do it in the morning, first thing, otherwise the world takes over and there is suddenly no more time, and it's dark.

Another big social occasion today, with people I love, all from my own country, speaking a familiar language, with a shared history.  Sitting around the big table we laugh and shout and eat and argue and tell our stories, while the children play quietly downstairs.

When the children start rushing about, late in the evening, parents begin to collect their coats, round up their progeny, and the lovely dinner is over, everyone gives kisses and hugs until we meet again, and Tim and I get into our quiet car with no little children to calm down, no one to carry out of the car, fast asleep, when we have arrived home, just ourselves.

We arrive home to an empty house, into which our boys burst like forces of nature a few minutes later, the quiet shattered, our hearts happy, as we stand with our backs to the woodstove, discussing the movie they have just seen.

Another little vase of flowers for our hostess tonight.  A rather blurry photograph.

Day 330

The little fiery tree outside my art room at school.

The meadow must have been surprised to feel my slow footsteps this grey morning followed by the black dog.  I gave myself a break, had no desire to run today.  Everything bright-wet and dripping from the overnight rain.

For the fifth year we attend Thanksgiven, an after-Thanksgiving celebration at the home of friends in Natick, where they make another whole Thanksgiving meal for their friends, having had it with family the day before!

Most of these people we only see this one day of the year, they are mostly neighbours of the host family.  So it is quite strange, because there are these people with whom you have fairly interesting and intimate conversations, but only on an annual basis.

The adults all look more or less the same each year, but of course, although we are consistently amazed by childrens' growth, all the little bodies have stretched a few inches, their faces lengthened, their abilities become more.  Like the little boy who dashed around like a crazy person a few years ago, but today sits straight-backed and proudly at the piano, playing Beatles songs, one after the other, a small group of adults surrounding him, singing, "We all live in a yellow submarine....."  The little girls we began with are now long-legged delicate beauties, skittish as deer. And those two babies from a few years back are now dear little girls, darling quaint characters reminding me of my own daughters such a long time ago now.

And at last we leave, my mouth tired from smiling so much, Tim's camera full of sweet photographs of the occasion, email addresses and blog-spots written on drawing paper with crayons, tucked away in my pocket, and then the long dark drive home through the cold night, a huge orange gibbous moon rising slowly into the sky, showing up on the horizon every time we find ourselves on a rise, then disappearing again and, a few minutes later, re-appearing unexpectedly to the left or right of its original showing, because, inadvertently and unobtrusively, the ribbon of road has shifted direction under the speeding wheels of our little car.

I was supposed to take an apple pie, but discovered that all the teenagers had eaten my apples two nights ago, and so instead I made more flowers.  Matthew made the largish one in the middle, which you can't really see properly, but he told me that I could not take credit for that one, which is why I am mentioning it.

Day 329

Light and the island.

Freezing misty breath as I run past the solid ice of the birdbath, up the hill through the quiet forest, into the frosty meadow, where no birds sing except for the occasional irrepressible chickadee.  Cold running, songs singing in my head, rhythmic pumping of the legs, of the heart, of the lungs.  Eyes on the ground so that my brain can't comprehend how far the hill still steepens, trickery of the mind by itself.  5.12 km (7.25 minutes per km).

A detour through the second meadow reveals a whole copse of Milkweed, their gossamer seeds taking off with each gust of wind, little breaths of lightness, tiny fairy creatures drifting, floating, flying everywhere. An enchanted glade! 

Thanksgiving.  Tim and I were making up things we were thankful for last night:

Headlamps on cars.
The fact that we don't just see in black and white, like dogs.
Birds holding meetings on telephone wires.
Nutella.
That someone invented pencils of different softnesses.
Our bed.
Baby elephants.
Etc.

We have a Thanksgiving tradition with two other foreign families, and this year it was Tom's turn to host, so we travelled down the coast to his house where the eleven of us feasted on half a Turducken, which is a turkey stuffed with a duck, which is stuffed with a chicken!  And these things also have no bones.  Thinking about how they get the bones out is horrible.  I was a bit wary, but it was actually delicious.  I have never tasted duck, and still haven't. I think when it is my turn again I am going to try tofurkey.

Thanksgiving is the only original American holiday, and I like it because it celebrates what we have, and the tradition is for families to be together and to feast, and there is little commercialism involved, as there is with Christmas and Easter and every other Hallmark moment. I suppose it is sad for all the turkeys though.  There is always a down side to everything, isn't there?  And of course, when I think of it, that is an enormous commercial business, the raising of turkeys for Thanksgiving.  Oy vay!  My mind is rattling on and changing as it goes!

So the first Thanksgiving was supposedly held by the survivors of the group which arrived on the Mayflower, those who had been saved by Squanto, a Native American of the Wampanoag tribe, who could speak English as he had been enslaved by a British slave-trader but who had also met and become friends with the British explorer, John Weymouth.

About half the colonists had died their first winter because their wheat seeds would not grow, no one had brought fishing gear, and they had no idea which plants they could use and which might be poisonous.

Squanto taught the fifty or so who were still alive, how to plant corn, to fish and dig clams, to tap maple trees for syrup, and which wild plants could be used medicinally. By that autumn, the pilgrims had successfully harvested their first crops, built seven houses, a common space, and three shelters to store their excess food.   They decided to have a feast to give thanks and invited Squanto and the Wampanoag chief, Massasoit.  Ninety Native Americans showed up and there was a three-day celebration.

Wouldn't it have been wonderful of the colonists to continue to co-exist in peace with the natives of the country?  Instead, as with every colonisation throughout history, the native population was exploited, murdered, moved to inhospitable places, and decimated.  

Nevertheless, I do still like the idea of Thanksgiving.  One year the girls surprised me by arriving on the doorstep the night before, which was wonderful.  I missed them so much today.

We took flowers to Tom and Brita.  Each one of us made a flower for the vase that I made. 

Day 328

Water Tree.

Cold and blustery day.  She runs through the wind, sometimes against it, her hair blowing out from the sides of her head, other times with it, buffered along like a little boat before the gale. 

In the dry and rustling meadow she meets the flock of dark-eyed juncoes, which don't fly from her, rather flash from behind, flitting over her head and into the trees at the edge of Heartbreak Hill. 

She revels in the cold, which burns her bare arms to a rosy hue.  Chickadees sing happily, they seem to share her blithe spirits today.  In the forest the trees sway and weave, talking with their soft gravelly voices, like old men sitting on the stoep.

As she enters the meadow, what may have been a sharp-shinned hawk, which had been gliding the gusts just above the trees, suddenly takes off with both wings beating, and she observes with wonder a white contrail, like that of an aeroplane, as it defecates into the wind!

She flies down Babbling Brook hill, exhilarated, against the strong wind, which pushes generously at her back on the uphill slog, and attempts to herd her, along with hundreds of whirring, whispering leaves.  Her will is stronger though, and she eludes the wind, laughing in its face.

She and Molly run and run, 6.10 km, at 7.50 minutes per km, the same time as yesterday, although it felt much easier today, but it was at least an extra km.

And such is her mood that even when she suddenly has that terrible feeling, when your foot encounters something soft and squishy, which sticks to it like a little ugly cushion, she blames the neighbour's dog, deals with it, and carries on running.

It is a day for reveling, in the fact that the dam is full again, in the observation that the bees are eating the sugar syrup she has put out for them, in the wonder that easing into a hot lavender foam bath must be one of the most luscious sensations there are, in the sudden empathy with her black dog, whose legs look as though they feel as stiff as hers when she gets up from a sitting position, in the excitement that it is Thanksgiving tomorrow, which is a lovely holiday.

The Black Dog, several attempts at drawing her, but she would not keep still.  She kept on getting too hot by lying too close to the fire, then too cold and getting up again to move closer.

Day 327

Clouds with sleeping trees.

Just when you think that you are really getting to be a better runner, you have a day where you stumble along, struggling with each step, until you have finally done 5 km, but with very little enjoyment, and rather slowly, 7.50 minutes per km.

At Refrigerator corner, there is a section where the ground has been cut away by the plough, and for the whole summer there were tall grasses growing right next to the step.  Now they have all died off and of course my right foot, after happily tracing the narrow path for months, suddenly lost its way as the brain noticed the steep step, and went off the edge, which was quite painful.  Our brains are very interesting things, because if there is a plank placed on the ground, we can all walk across it without the least trouble, but if you raise that plank a foot or more above the ground, most people will over-balance, quite literally. 

And if you wear goggles which make everything look upside down, after a week or so your brain will adjust it all so that you see everything the right way up.  Matthew has been learning about such experiments, which are fascinating.

My very dear friend turned 50 yesterday, which is a big milestone in one's life.  She lives in Cape Town, which is my hometown.  In the 80's she shared a student house with Tim, so I only met her a few years later, but we have been good good friends ever since, and have corresponded for years and years.  She is extremely wise, and very very tolerant, and lives her life with a great deal of integrity.  I am so glad she is my friend, and I wish her much happiness and wonderful hikes and lots of love for her future.  

Day 326

Three cormorants at Clark's Pond.  We used to live opposite this pond, and walk past it to the beach every day.  Now I go occasionally.

A family down the hill are blasting a new driveway to make it less steep, no doubt, and so on Saturday I saw a whole lot of working men who stared at me while I was preparing to run.  Today was an overcast ominous day, and so I armed myself with my Swiss army-knife before I went running, and carried it the entire way in one hand or another as I had no pockets on the track-pants I was wearing.  As one hand grew more and more clammy, it would be transferred to the other.  Strange how clumsy it feels in my left hand, how correct in my right.  People will think me crazy, but my history shows, I suppose.

I even practiced lunges in my mind, made sure that I knew which blade to open, so that in the event that I would ever have to use it, I would not flourish the little pair of scissors, or the tin-opener by mistake. 

I ran 5.02 km at a rate of 7.27 mins per km, not that great, but I always get better with distance, which feels good, means I have developed stamina.  The wild fountain grasses are Naples-yellow against the grey sky, quite beautiful.  Looking at pictures from the same time last year, it is evident that the leaves disappeared more quickly this year.  More wind, drier summer.

Matthew bought an A Flock of Seagulls record at a second-hand shop on Saturday, which has happily re-awakened our old record player, which we discovered for $10 at a yard sale a few years ago.  I remember the boys were 13 or 14, and absolutely fascinated by this amazing 'technology'. 

This is the generation which was born with a computer mouse in its hand, has grown up with constant access to the internet and the incredibly intricate and rapidly expanding technology of ipods, cellphones which are now mini-computers, text-messaging, video-chat, digital photography. 

Yesterday ten-year old Gina stared in amazement as I put on a record, having never seen one before, and tonight Matthew is still fascinated by the fact that a piece of vinyl can store sound-waves which can then be played by a needle which transfers the vibrations caused by the original recording stylus, on to a diaphragm in a speaker which is then amplified so that we can hear it.  I find this much easier to understand than how a tiny little flat metal thing can hold a million songs. 

Analog sound is beautiful.  Apparently analog recording captures the whole sound-wave, whereas digital only record "snapshots" of the soundwave, so it IS better. 

So tonight we have been playing all the old records. I brought them all here, wouldn't let go of any of them.  Like my books, they mark the journey of my life.  There is Paul Gallico's The Snow Goose, and on the other side The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas, with Herbert Marshall and "supporting cast, sound effects and music". Lying on the carpet next to the big wooden "hi-fi" set which housed the radio and the record-player, my brother and I would listen entranced. 

And here is the soundtrack of Mary Poppins, the very first record I owned.  My friend Trish and I knew the words to every song on that record, and would sing with the same intonation as the original singers, including Glynis Johns' high nasal voice singing "Sister Suffragette". 

So I just gave in to nostalgia, remembering students days, then the little girls dancing to records, and how Tim and I would always buy them each a record if we went to a conference or something in another city, or if we went to the big exciting city of Port Elizabeth for the day, they would get to choose their own record, that was their treat.  And there are videos of Emma and her friends, Sarah-Jane, Nina, Stephanie, Chanté, all dancing to the record player's music, and Emma's ordered choreography.

I promised a picture of my sister for today, and here is one, although it is not quite her, but has something of her essence, a copy of one of my favourite images of her, taken by her boyfriend of the time, when she was about 21.