Day 61

Our mothers were the sisters Joan and Nora.

 Today my cousin Brent sent me a photograph of their children, the eight cousins, when we were much much younger.

 
Joan had three children, Nora five.  They lived in the same suburb and helped each other a lot when their children were small.  For example, when I was just a couple of months old I lived with Nora for about a month, when she was pregnant with my cousin Carol, while my mother was in hospital, desperately ill with pleurisy.  Another time my mother had my cousin Carol and little Michael to stay with us for a few weeks when my uncle was very ill.  And before I was born, when my brother was struck down with polio, my sister went to stay with my aunt's family so that my mother could nurse him full-time. 

In the picture, my big sister Brenda is the eldest, sitting in the middle, already a young woman, aged about 17, holding our cousin Michael, the newest and youngest.  Our mothers had two of their children just a few months apart.  The two cousins at either edge are the same age, Rose on the left and my brother Timothy on the right, about ten or eleven at the time.  The two little girls on either side of my sister are my cousin Carol on the left and me, Anne, on the right, born five months apart, aged about four.  My aunt had two dear little boys in between Rose and Carol, Alan on the left and Brent on the right.

I always notice hands, and what are we all doing with our hands?   We were obviously all told to sit down on the ground and arranged in a triangular dynamic, ready to be photographed.  The two at the edges seem the most naturally comfortable, although their hands are still consoling one another.  They are old enough to be responsible and smile while they look at the camera.  (My cousins are all impeccably dressed and shod, while my brother and I look like barefoot urchins.) 

My sister has been handed a very unhappy little baby, and sits awkwardly, her hands unbalanced on the small body, doing her best, and also squeezing out a smile, trying to ignore the crying infant in her arms.  Later in life she held and healed (and still continues to do so) thousands of children as a Head Paediatric Sister.

The two little dark-haired brothers look slightly ill at ease, Alan clasping his hands and six-year old Brent playing with something real or imaginary with his fingers, neither of them paying much attention to the person with the camera.

Carol has her hands steepled, a very mature gesture, and sits, legs stretched out, beautiful curls wafting on the breeze, enduring the pose.

And I gaze directly at the viewer with a big camera-induced smile, my hands attached to my leg, making certain it is on properly.

It is always fascinating to look at our families, our relatives, ourselves, and try to remember who we were, or to see where we come from.  It was a sunny place, that time, we ran about together, we were fearless and bold, cruel and kind, children learning how to become. 

Luna examining  her summer family in America

Soixante

I went to a Bridal shower today for the wife-to-be of the son of our first American friends.  (Such a complicated sentence.)

 
It was a beautiful affair.  Everything was laid out with care and affection.  And the groom-to-be was also there, adding his hilarious comments to ensure nothing was taken too seriously.  All the guests were people who loved these two, some of them had known them since they were born.  Cousins and aunts and their mothers and so many helpful and organising people, a huge support group, washing up, serving, attending.  There was someone who would write down the names of all the people, someone who would pack away all the paper, and such a pile of wonderful kitchen appliances surrounded them at the end.  They are indeed a lucky pair.

All these rituals that people go through before the actual wedding, which is decided upon months in advance, and then finally the day arrives and it is this extravagant professing of love and commitment in public, in front of all your friends and relations.  It is a day to remember all your life, with photographs and movies of the day, a day when you are the most important person in the world, and everyone only has eyes for you.

(I think that if it was me, I would use all the money that I would have spent on the wedding to buy some lovely books, and then we would go on a wonderful trip somewhere in the world, starting with the Galapagos Islands.)
 
The other evening I was coming home very late, very tired, my headlights pointing out the mounds of dirty ice-covered snow lining the dark road near our house, when I was suddenly startled out of my reverie as a beautiful fox trotted across the road, its lithe body and magnificent tail illuminated  by my lights.  I always get such a rush of pleasure at seeing a fox.  A sighting implies that things are well in the animal world, everything more or less in balance, a good supply of mice, rabbits, and all the other things these opportunistic feeders eat.

There are both red and gray foxes in Massachusetts, but strangely enough the gray fox is also mostly red, so I have no idea what this one was. I was rather horrified to learn that there is a hunting season for foxes in Massachusetts, when you may shoot them for their fur.  Why would anyone need the fur of a this small creature?  The biggest fox only weighs about 15 pounds!

Studies have shown that there is a direct correlation between lower fox populations and an increase in Lyme's disease.  The Eastern Coyote is a hybrid between a coyote and a wolf, and they have moved into this area en masse, with dire consequences.  The Eastern Coyote out-competes and kills the native Fox population, which leads to a rise in the number of small mammals like mice and chipmunks who would ordinarily be lower in numbers due to the fox's appetite for them.  These tiny animals are the ones that transmit Lyme's disease bacteria to ticks, so that if there are more of them,
there is an increase in ticks that carry Lyme disease.

Foxes are amazingly adaptable creatures.  One night in London my niece came out with us and then went all the way home alone on the bus when it was already very late.  I worried about her, so stayed up until she had arrived safely in her flat, and she texted me several times on her bus-trip home, about the strange people on the late-night bus, how I shouldn't worry because she is so used to doing this (but what about the strange people?), how she was so happy to have my daughter as her cousin, and the last one was to tell me that she had arrived home, and just as she was nearing her building, she had witnessed a beautiful healthy fox trotting away down the street, and it had made her so happy.  I went to sleep thinking of the clever fox, how like dogs they are, but how they are also cat-like, and Paula's fox made me happy too, as she had known it would. 

fifty-nine

John Steinbeck said, "A writer out of loneliness is trying to communicate like a distant star sending signals.  He isn't telling or teaching or ordering.  Rather he seeks to establish a relationship of meaning, of feeling, of observing.  We are lonesome animals.  We spend all life trying to be less lonesome."


It struck me when I read this yesterday as so apt to the writing of this blog.  Usually I am tired every night when I begin, but before long I am energized by the ideas, I take great pleasure in finding the right words, I seek to put things as beautifully as possible, to explore the juxtaposition of the pieces of my language, the fragments of my life.  My observations give shape to my days, and it is as though I live with more lasting perception when I am writing like this.

Several people have mentioned that they love to read my piece with their morning coffee, and there is a connection there, as I too look forward to and enjoy reading people's responses, a "relationship of meaning".

The lovely words, my mother tongue, the language you learn from your mother.  English, the little language which grew into a behemoth with the growth of the British Empire as it gradually took over the world.  English the international language now, the dominant language used in IT, communications, science, aviation, seafaring, radio, entertainment, and diplomacy.

But even more than this, the language of literature and poetry, the language of stories.    The little squiggles on a page which suddenly make sense and take you away, an escape from illness, from drudgery, from boredom, from being stuck inside.  It's like flying...

And you are the gawky red-headed Anne of Green Gables, for whom you were named, you are the curious girl, inquisitive about her new world.  You watch her developing relationship with the brother and sister Matthew and Marilla, and your own heart soars when hers does.

And you are Oliver Twist, aching for his lost mother.  You are that gullible child, tossed and turned on the vicissitudes of life.   

And now you are a very tired older woman falling asleep sitting up, trying to think about language. 

I am a collector of images, and long ago, probably when I was a student in the 70's, I found this incredible photograph in a photography annual, I think.  There was no explanation printed with it, just this strange ritual captured in a moment, the boy rapt-faced, completely accepting of what the adults are doing to him, which is, on the face of it, very odd indeed.

And now, so many years later, with the wonders of the world wide web at my fingertips, I have found a probable explanation.  In Greece, there is an ancient ritual (condoned by the church!) used to heal children who have been disfigured, or had polio or some other type of crippling disease, or are not quite right in the head.  They split a young sapling, prop it open, and then the godmother and godfather pass the child through the middle of the tree five times.  After this they bind up the sapling and leave it.  If the tree dies the child will not recover, but if the tree survives there is a strong chance the child will be cured of whatever ails him.  It is a strange and beautiful idea, reiterating the strong bond between humans and trees.

I have decided to make a painting based on this image, and this is the beginning of my version, not nearly complete. It is quite a lot larger than the little photograph, about 60cm x 120cm, although of course they look about the same size here on the computer 'page'. 

It is interesting how I am capturing the same moment which actually happened all those years ago, the godparents might even be dead by now, and the boy might have grown into a man.

The tree must be a grand size now, and the man goes to visit it, and hangs a little silver chain on one of the tree's twigs, and says a prayer of thanks to his tree which was once the sapling which held his spirit in its heart, and the tree stands there, green and solid, glad that his boy is now a tall man, who became a father and is now even the grandfather of a tiny new grandson.

 Art imitates life and imagination plumes forth.  I love all the hands, and the movement from darkness into light, and the serenity of the boy's face, being born again. 

Same day as my age!

Made it back to the gym this morning!  "Ran" 1.7 miles (2.73km) on the elliptical machine, and did all the other weight-training exercises, while listening to my incredibly long but rather thrilling audio-book.  It was -11C when we left the house - woo hoo!

Did I mention how much I enjoy flying?  It wasn't always so, particularly after an awful flight from Madrid to Chicago where our hostesses were on loan from the Spanish Inquisition. 

One awful flight between Cape Town and Joburg we experienced the most terrible turbulence, when it felt as though the plane had just plummeted about a km towards the earth!  Matthew was sitting next to me and reassured me saying, "It's fine Mom, it's just like a roller-coaster!"  Which did not make me feel much better, loathing roller-coasters as I do.  But he was so sweet, because the next big bump he looked at me quizzically and then held my hand through the rest of the flight.  I think his hand was squeezed to a pulp by the time we landed.

Of course we have all dreamed of flying, and throughout history people have tried all kinds of weird and wonderful designs in order to move through the air like a bird does.

 

 

Perhaps it would be easier to fly if our skeletons looked like this beautiful fruitbat's.

 
But I got my flight mojo back, and so today here is a poem I wrote after flying to Washington D.C. last October with Tim.

Ode to Flying

Oh Goddess of aeroplanes
Sleek dragon
Thank you for taking us up
So fast off the ground,
where we could see the little houses
grow smaller and smaller
until the mountains were just lines of light
and shade.
As we floated serenely through the high sky.

And thanks for the fat little sun-tipped cumulus
Hurtling toward us
then airily parting for our slick craft.
We sailed over an ocean of cloud
for a time.
Until green and golden fields of farms
And long and winding roads.
Also glittering lakes, snaking rivers.
And the lovely thrill of banking
Like the tilt of a frigate-bird.

And I am grateful for the descent,
As baseball pitches, schools, houses
magnified again,
And the plane glimpsed the angled runway.
With delight I watched your fleet shadow
swift beside us, gliding,
saw your tender claws reach down
in motion with our landing gear
Guiding our touchdown,
And all the beautiful momentum
Suddenly pulled back
Slowed
Stopped.
And with a light kiss of the wing
You left us
Elated, grateful,
And back on the ground.

Day 57

 I haven't got back into the gym yet.  We woke up this morning early in time to go but couldn't.  It is so cold!

I am looking forward to spring so much.  This part of the year is very hard, always.  Although I love how the seasons here are so enormously different, winter goes on way too long.  It lasts about six or seven months, and so March and April are really difficult to deal with.

Slowly, painstakingly, the buds appear on the trees.  They swell a little at the end of each tiny twig, waiting to blossom, and you are seduced into thinking it will happen in a few days time, the delicate newness will emerge, the dead tree metamorphosing into burgeoning LIFE!  But no, then it seems that you wait months and months, all that potential, hovering just out of reach, because, like us this morning, the tiny blooms have no will to leap out into the frigid air.

My very optimistic friend Gene told me tonight that she loves this time of the year, because it can only get better!  But I, having just experienced the beginnings of spring in London: blossoms, daffodils, and everywhere green and damp and kind to the eyes, yearn for it with my whole heart.

Three of my indoor plants have decided that it must be time for spring and have produced copious leaves.  My little azalea has produced the purest of white flowers.  My wisteria is growing wildly up the window, searching for the sun.

Ambitious azalea.

Felicity the fig-tree.

I was quite surprised to learn that most private school students here have incredibly expensive brand name coats.  Apparently many wear Canada Goose parkas, which cost between $700 and $1000, and then they leave them on the floor, or in the passage, or on a table in a classroom.  And sometimes they are never claimed, and go to lost property and from there to a charity.   Others wear Burberry leather jackets which cost about the same.  If you can afford it I am sure it is amazing to have a grand coat like that.  But why buy children such things when they are going to outgrow them so quickly?

When Emma and Jess were little I made most of their clothes.  And I mended all their clothes too.  They had outrageous patches on the knees and bums of their trousers, and embroidered flowers and animals on their pinafores and dresses, which they wore (especially Jess in her inimitable way), over their pants. 

Jess on her third birthday.

My mother sewed small shirts for my brother out of my dad's old shirts when the collars were frayed but the fabric still good enough.  My father fixed old fridges and sold them for extra money (my dad was always fixing something).

It seems to me that we have lost something extraordinary in this new Age, a thriftiness of the soul.

We have a glut of information but we don't have the knowledge, time or the patience to mend things.  For example, we have no idea how to sit quietly and repair a sock. When you have darned your own sock, you put it on carefully, you keep your toenails trimmed so that they won't be responsible for more holes.  You appreciate the sock on your foot, you appreciate your fine needlework, your feel a sense of pride in your ability to keep the sock going for another while.

 This lack of frugality is most noticeable here in America, where you can't even have your shoes repaired, let alone a washing machine or fridge.  Often the part is more expensive or harder to come by than a new model, and your cheapest option is to buy it new, again.  So much landfill, so much waste.  The quality of appliances is deliberately shoddy so that the economy will continue to grow as people have to constantly replace the broken paraphernalia of our greedy era. 

I feel the desire to go and mend some of the clothing from my mending basket.
But first I must sleep.

Day 56

It struck me as I was walking into school this morning how many parallel lives we live, or how many different roles we fulfill in our lives.  Yesterday I was in London in the spring, a mother and grandmother, last night I was back in wintry Massachusetts, a wife and lover.  This morning I woke up and had no idea who I was for a minute or two, and then discovered that I was me, Anne, in my own familiar house.  A few minutes later I had the distinctly strange experience of talking to Emma and Luna on flat-screen Skype whereas only a few hours before I had held them very three-dimensionally in my arms. After that I prepared all my bags for school and drove down the cold morning highway to the city on the right side of the road again, listening to my audio-book which is very entrancing.  When I arrived at school I had to claw my way out of 19th century New Zealand (the audiobook, The Luminaries, winner of the Booker prize, youngest author ever at 28!) and become an Art teacher of international children, which I haven't done for a very long week.  

And now I sit here hugging the woodstove, an exhausted blogger, struggling to keep my eyes open.

The kids at my school all speak at least two languages fluently, usually three. They are constantly dipping in and out of these different tongues with such ease.  It is a wonderful gift to children, to be raised in a bilingual household.  Growing up with two languages grows that little brain in a phenomenal way, and makes it easier to pick up other languages later.

And children are past masters at switching codes, talking one way with their friends, and an utterly different way with adults.

I am so tired that I am just going to put up some of my pictures of different skies on different days.  They're like fingerprints, no two ever completely alike.

55

Written while crossing the wide blue Atlantic.

A sad/happy day because while I am leaving my little UK family, I am traveling back to our adopted country where my husband is waiting for me, and we will see each other through the glass doors and smile and our bodies will meet one another, again. When we all lived in the magical 16 Cross Street in South Africa, we could never have dreamed that one day we would be spread all over the globe.  One daughter lives in the "green and pleasant land", this little island which once ruled the world.  Another daughter resides in beauteous Cape Town, the place where I was born and raised, near the southern-most tip of Africa.  One son is studying in sunny Senegal, at the western-most point of Africa, in Dakar.  And the other son is stuck in snow-laden Boston in America, where, a little way north, our house creaks under the burden of this winter's record snowfall. 

We have spent the last thirteen years leaving people we love, or saying goodbye to a beloved person who is leaving.  I am so tired of it.  I hate airports with a passion.  I am green with jealousy when I see the mother of Emma's friend, who lives just around the corner from her daughter, who looks after her little grandson a couple of days a week and babysits him at night when his parents want a night out.  Her house is equipped with a high chair and a cot for the little lad, and his face lights up with pleasure when he sees his granny and grandad.  Such a perfect arrangement.

We were sitting at the airport having lunch when Emma remarked how sad she was and that we are always saying goodbye and then longing for the next time, which is not a great way to live your life.  So I replied that we all have our separate lives to lead, our everyday lives, and they are good, and filled with work and play and the usual mix of gladness and sorrows.  I pointed out that we don't live with our mothers forever anyway.  She smilingly responded that we should.  That Luna will always live with her.  We laughed and laughed, remembering our bond, how when Emma was a baby I wore her like a garment, and when she was about five she vowed that she would marry me when she was a grownup.

The last thing I always tell Luna (well, I've done it the three times I have said goodbye to her), is "Don't forget me, I'm your grandmother."  And so far she hasn't.  I told her that as I was leaving London when she was only six days old, and she gazed at me with those wise newborn eyes and listened, and remembered, because when Emma walked out on to the airport concourse with a four-month old Luna strapped to her front, the little thing took one look at me and gave me a beatific smile, starting with a crinkling of her eyes and spreading until her whole face beamed.  I reminded her again when she and Emma flew back to London five weeks later, and then, ten days ago, when I finally walked into the kitchen where her great-aunt was holding her, all miserable with chickenpox, I sang our little song to her and she recognised me and smiled her enchanting spotty-faced grin and came willingly into my joyful arms.

Missing my little Moon.

I look at the map on the tiny screen on the seat-back in front of me to see how far we have come, and there is the whole world fitting neatly into this little rectangle, with the important cities marked.  There is Cape Town at the bottom, and Dakar slightly west, and above them London, and then off to one side, Boston.  And it all looks so small and easy to deal with, betraying the eyes because the heart knows that the distances are vast, but also that that wonderful imaginary umbilicus stretches across oceans and on the wind to each of those places, beautiful and bright and shining.

Fifty-fourth Day

London bus and my gorgeous daughter.

What I saw in the museum today.

For my last day in London I could choose wherever I wanted to go.  So I think Stuart was very disappointed when I chose the Victoria and Albert museum.  But I bribed him with the promise of a nice meal.

Luna loved the museum.  Stuart thought that it wouldn't be a good place for babies, but little ones like Lunes enjoy looking at anything really, as long as you make it interesting.  Everything is so new and wonderful to their little brains, which are expanding every day with each fresh experience.  She was enchanted by the jewelry gallery, which is like Aladdin's cave, with low lights and shining gems, silver and gold, everywhere.  She loved the halls where she sang "Hoo! Hoo!" like an owl, savouring the wonderful echoes she created.  She was delighted by the reflections she found on a structure next to a bench.  She fell happily asleep amongst all the nudes in the sculpture gallery. 
While Luna was sleeping Emma and I went around the fashion gallery which displayed clothing through two centuries, and picked out all our favourites, or what we would wear if we were forced to pick from a particular display case.  Emma always makes things into a game, which is why I only really enjoy shopping with her and Jess, never alone. 

Afterwards, when we had laughed and exclaimed at all the weird and wonderful fashions, and the choices we had made, we sat down next to Stuart and the sleeping baby to rest our legs for a while, gazing at the beautiful sculptures all around us.  A little girl went up to a seated figure, its shiny bum right at her eye-level and started examining it minutely, then began stroking the crack with great gusto, until a gallery guard came up to her and told her to stop, walking past us afterwards and raising her eyes in amused horror to the ceiling with the whispered remark, "Kids!"

It is interesting that we walk through art galleries and are able to examine naked figures in the utmost detail, unlike anywhere else.  And of course the majority are women's bodies, although there were a few male nudes in the mix.  But there is something inherently savage about a torso of a woman, it is very beautiful, it is artistic, the angles are exquisite, but violence has been committed, there are no arms and there is no head.  Why?  Where are they?

Earlier I had been suddenly met by a familiar figure, my John the Baptist, who has always reminded me of my husband, and whom I have never seen in real life!   What a pleasure, what a master Rodin was!

Sitting there on the bench I wafted off into daydreams, people flitting in and out of view as they passed by on their way somewhere, hurrying to meet someone, or lingered slowly, examining each sculpture.  And then into my consciousness came an old white-haired lady, her hair coiffed like my mum's, her body solid like hers, gently observing a Rodin dancer, and instantly I ached for my mother who has been gone for eight years now.  And I thought how strange it is that only photographs remain of the person who was Joan Radford.  Of course she is present in the memories of her children and grandchildren, and all her friends who are still around, and in the beautiful things she made, the embroidery, the cross-stitch, the lace.  But all that energy, all that love, all that huge long life, everything beloved about her, is all gone. It is so odd.

And now there is this little Luna who has great-granny Joan's hands, so perhaps there is a little bit of my mother in her great-granddaughter's deft fingers, it may be that a small part of her spirit resides in this new child who is so dear to my heart. 

When Nick and Matthew were about four or five they asked me one day where they had been before they were born, so I turned the question back on them and inquired where they thought they had been.  Being twins they told their ideas together, one adding when the other stopped for breath, and it was a sweet story of flying with the stars, waiting to be born, just drifting around like a dream in the sky.  For all we know, they may be right.

Day 53

It was Luna's first birthday celebration today.  So there was a big party with all the tiny people and cakes and all the young parents drinking wine and beer and talking about their experiences of the first year of their baby's life.  What a year that is! 

Happy birthday girl

second cousins

You go through all the strangeness and wonder of growing this person inside the woman, and then the trauma of birth, and then you get to take home this new little mewling (quite ugly-looking) creature who is totally helpless, of whom you are pretty scared, about whom you know very little, but with whom you soon fall utterly and deeply and irrevocably in love, and with whom you suffer through colic and teething and getting sick for the first time, and first smiles, and first food, first word, often first step, standing proudly upright like the long line of Homo sapiens sapiens who have gone before.

And suddenly there is this little person standing balancing against the table, eating cake, and looking a lot more like a human being than they did just a year ago.  Such a short time really, but such an enormous rush of development.  This is now a small human being, with desires and dislikes and interests and tastes of her own already. 

And she is your little person, looking a little like Granny Margaret here, or having toes like Uncle Nick there. She is your darling clever little thing, whom you cannot imagine even going for a sleepover at someone else's house, let alone ever breaking your heart or making bad decisions, or telling you that she hates you, or driving a car, or leaving home to go to university, or having babies of her own.  

The first babies to arrive at the party were all girls, all with blue or green eyes and blond hair.  It is surprising how many tow-headed small children there are, and then the hair seems to slowly lose that luminescence, so that by they time they are in their teens it has progressed to a generally mousy brown.  All four of my children looked like Scandinavians when they were little, with white-blond hair, and only Emma still has flaxen hair.  She does lighten her hair but still has pale eyebrows and fair eyelashes, the mark of the true blonde. 

Only about 2% of the entire world population are blond after the age of 18. There are various theories as to why Europeans in particular developed blond hair, and most of them seem to point to men being more attracted to blue-eyed blond-haired women.  So nothing has changed?  " ... a hypothesis was presented by Canadian anthropologist Peter Frost, who claims blond hair evolved very quickly in a specific area at the end of the last ice age by means of sexual selection.  According to Frost, the appearance of blond hair and blue eyes in some northern European women made them stand out from their rivals at a time of fierce competition for scarce males." - wikipedia

Scientifically speaking, people with light skins and blond hair have low levels of the dark pigment eumelanin.  These people evolved after the last Ice Age in Europe, about 11000 years ago, as a result of fewer daylight hours and therefore less absorption of Vitamin D. 

One of the little blondies at the party.

fifty-two

We went to the London Zoo today, in Camden.  I hate zoos generally, suffer so for the large animals in particular.  But it was Luna's treat for her birthday and a lovely outing for Emma and I too, and I knew there were no elephants, so I was happy about that.  A zoo is the perfect combination of natural and man-made.  Animals living in pens.

Zoos have many good qualities. They educate people about the need for conservation, even helping in terms of keeping gene pools broad.  In the near future they might be the only place where we will find various creatures which have become extinct in the wild, like polar bears, for example.

They don't have polar bears at the London Zoo but they do have two Sumatran tigers, who were both born in captivity and are part of a world-wide breeding programme to ensure a healthy and diverse population in zoos around the world, and to help with research in the field to save this critically endangered species. 

Luna and Em watching the little Red Titi monkey below

Red Titi monkey watching Luna and Emma.

Luna loved the meerkats.

Giraffes are the strangest-looking creatures.

Beautiful bird

Pelican meeting.

My little sweetpea.

 We had a lovely day, and my favourite creatures were the otters, but unfortunately all those photographs had to be deleted because I had taken them on the same settings I had for the indoor ones!  So I have photographs in my head, as my grandmother taught me to do.

And the pictures must speak as I am too tired for more words tonight after our long trek through London today, carrying prams and babies and going underground and overland and through sunshine and rain and bitter cold, but with warm hearts and interesting conversations and arms linked, and lots of laughter.

Day 51

Such a cold and rainy morning for our little Moon's first birthday!  She woke up at quarter to seven, which was just before the actual anniversary of her birth a year ago at 7.53!  She woke up cheerful and chirping away in her little bird-language.  (A year ago Stuart was sleeping on the floor next to Emma's bed while she was in hospital, and woke up feeling dazed and bewildered from all the events of the night, thinking that he was at the seaside, confusing the cries of newborns with those of seagulls!)
We had another long walk along the river Thames from Wandsworth to Putney this time.  Luna slept part of the time, and then when we stopped to feed a swan, some ducks and gulls, she woke up and took an interest.  She is still spotty but beginning to look a bit more normal, poor little Lunes.

The smaller spotted birthday-girl, seen on the banks of the Thames River.

Herring gull lands on the tidal water of the Thames.

Daffs!

It's spring in England already!

The Beauteous Evening  on the River Thames.

All you need is LOVE.

The Thames is a wonderful river which is the second longest in England.  The part we walk along is the Tidal River, and experiences the tides of the English Channel.  The entire Thames River has a path next to it called the Thames Path, which can be walked and cycled and enjoyed by many many people.  It was opened in 1996, and goes about 260km, from Kemble in Gloucestershire, where the source of the Thames is located, to the Thames barrier at Charleton. 

Before bridges were built, the Thames divided tribes, described by Julius Caesar.
The Thames was one of the busiest waterways in the world in the 1800s.
The Thames used to be filthy, and in the 1300s toilets were even built on bridges above the water which then emptied directly into the water, until the stench became so unbearable that the king issued an edict to try to clean up the area.
In the 20th century the river became severely polluted but a huge cleanup was instigated and today there is so much wildlife in the river, including a rare type of seahorse!
Many artists have used the river as inspiration, particularly artists like William Turner and James Abbott McNeill Whistler.
The water flowing past your eyes as you walk is a great calming influence, which is probably why city people walk next to it as often as they can.

And now for something man-made, and different.
Things you absolutely need for babies:
- A wipes warmer - yes, a contraption that WARMS the wipes that you wipe the baby's bum with!

- A baby bathtub

- A seat that attaches to the bottom of the bath so that the baby does not inadvertently fall over.

- A fabric cover for the baby-seat in a supermarket trolley/carriage.

- A nursing/breastfeeding pillow.

- Feeding products designed to give dads the "experience of breastfeeding".

- The Thudguard.

These are some of the ridiculous things that new parents are told they require for good/brighter/happier/healthier children!

Good grief is all I can say.  And poor gullible new parents!
 
A wipes warmer?  Seriously?  Firstly you are taking part in the desecration of the earth by adding to the landfills.  Whatever happened to a good old-fashioned cloths and water?

You don't need a weird baby bath.  You have a perfectly good bathtub in your bathroom.  I put all my babies on their backs in an inch of water in the big bath from when they were very tiny, after they outgrew the sink, and as a result they all love water and were never scared of getting their faces wet and all learned to swim at the age of three!

While a seat with suction cups on the bottom is useful, you sit with the baby anyway, so why not just let the baby sit in the real bath, with more water surrounding him/her?

A trolley seat-cover is the height of germophobia!  Children need some germs to build up immunity.  I would put one twin in the seat and the other would stand up in the actual trolley when we went shopping, and they would partake of the odd bar of cheese or pound of butter when I wasn't looking.   I can't really believe that someone even thought of and marketed this successfully!

A breastfeeding pillow?  All you need is a pillow, one of the ones you already have in your house.

A breastfeeding device for dads?  Surely they should just be happy that they don't have to wake up every few hours for the first year or however long you breastfeed your baby for.  If the baby is formula-fed, the dad can feed them the same as anyone else.

A thudguard?  How on earth is the child ever going to learn to avoid sharp-cornered tables etc.?

Luna loves shoe boxes in which she can pack all her dad's cd covers, and then unpack them again.
She loves the cupboard with all the pots and pans in the same way.
She loves all cupboards actually, and will unpack anything.
She loves books, and will sit with a pile for a relatively long time in terms of her age of 1 year exactly.
She loves to walk along holding on to the couch, plop down on all fours and crawl off in the direction of her mother, who is the MOST IMPORTANT PERSON IN THE WHOLE WORLD to her, which is as it should be, and on the way she will pick up small virtually invisible pieces of fluff, or tiny portions of toast she dropped at breakfast, and eat them.
She loves singing songs and clapping hands.
She does NOT really like to sit for a long time in the pram.   

Fifty

At supper we were talking about the whole awful debacle that was the time leading up to Luna's birth and beyond, including the entire hospital experience.  We were so excited for this baby's birth, our first grandchild/niece/ in our family.  Emma had planned on a water birth, and Jess and I came to stay so that Emma would have help for at least three weeks.   Well, the aunt-to-be had to go home without even seeing the new little being, as Luna took her time, just like her aunt had done so many years before, and eventually, with the baby two weeks overdue, Emma was informed that she should go into hospital for an induction on Monday 18th February.

The three of us feverishly packed everything we would need, as Stuart and I were to be her birthing partners.  At the hospital reception a very gruff administrator stopped us short and told us that only one person could be the birthing partner because of the NORO virus having been a problem in hospitals.  Emma, in her inimitable way, immediately decided that she would go to another hospital where I would be welcome, but the grumpy administrator informed her that it was the same in all hospitals, and she told us to hurry up and choose the birth partner while she waited impatiently to process Emma as a patient.  No one had previously informed Emma that I would not be allowed in, and not even after the birth would I be able to visit, meaning that we would only see each other again when she arrived home a few days later.  Things went from bad to worse very fast, and I am sure that the fact that Emma was so upset and that the staff were so unpleasant and uncaring impeded any good progression of events coming out of the entire fiasco of an experience.  Luna was eventually born by emergency C-section on the 20th, when the foetus had already gone into distress, and the mother was suffering from a high fever due to an infection which was a direct result of bad practice in the hospital itself.   And things continued to go very badly in terms of care until they were finally allowed to come home on the Friday afternoon.

If you talk to any mother just about everyone has her own horrific birth-story to tell.  Of all the women I have ever spoken to about birth, only a handful have good things to say about it.   Why, in the 21st century, is this still the case?  Why must women suffer so?

Six months after the debacle that was Luna's birth, Jess had her little Ella by C-section, as the baby was breech, and it was such a different enterprise. The staff were amazing throughout, everything went cleanly and according to plan, and even though only the baby's dad was supposed to stay behind after regular visiting hours, I was allowed, as the mum's mother, to stay the entire afternoon and late into the first night with my daughter and newest granddaughter.  And Jess was totally present and aware for the entire positive experience, and recovered so quickly thereafter as well. 

Something that is totally natural, giving birth, has become man-made, for several centuries now, no doubt with good intentions, but with sometimes disastrous consequences, like so many women dying in childbirth from infection caused by doctors' dirty hands and instruments.  I am not advocating that the developed world make a return to plopping the baby out in a field, as many women in the world still must do, but surely, with all our technology, all our insight, all our knowledge of the human body, we can find a better way.  Perhaps C-section is the new way to go.

In England women are encouraged to have a "natural" childbirth, and the protocol is to let the vagina tear if it must, instead of doing an episiotomy.  There are recognised degrees of tearing, just like there are recognised categories of things that have to happen before you can term what is happening in a country a genocide.  Some things that human beings choose to categorise are very strange indeed.

Thinking about all these things, doing a little research into tearing vaginas versus episiotomies, remembering my own traumatic first experience of childbirthbirth, and then thinking too of all the awful things I know about the truly horrific things girls and women have to go through in some countries, like FGM and its myriad awful consequences, makes me feel so fragile that I find empathic tears running down my cheeks.  I think that 90% of women probably suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after giving birth, just as soldiers do, after having been forced to do and witness terrible things in a war.

We went for a long walk along the Thames today, under a cloudy sky, brisk and cold, Luna in her pram, and Emma and I talking companionably, my firstborn daughter and my firstborn granddaughter.  We saw these beautiful sculptures, which epitomise how we feel as mothers, even after going through all that pain, because there it is, the reason for our lives, the biological imperative, only much much more than that.

Day 50

My granddaughter Luna.

Luna having a conversation with her visitor Teddy, the dog-next-door. Note the dearest little tender back-of-the-neck.

Luna is one of the most delicious characters I have ever met.  Today was a busy day.  There were a number of firsts:
She stood on those two little feet for about 10 seconds without holding on to anything, clapping her hands while I sang.
She waved goodbye to grandpa in America when I asked her to, adding the most charming grin imaginable.
She said "Hello" and "doggy" clearly, several times.
She tried to put her own sock on and almost succeeded.
She cried in dismay that I was not accompanying them as Emma took her inside, her tearful face gazing back down the path at me where I was unpacking the grocery bags from the car. 

In other news:
I was looking after the baby and getting dressed while Emma showered, and Luna suddenly noticed with great joy that I also possessed breasts like her mother, and came crawling as fast as she could up to me, then babbled urgently and put out her little arms to be picked up.  She immediately set to work trying to undress what she had observed, even making the excited little sounds she makes just before she is fed by her mother.  It was the sweetest vote of confidence in my ability to nurture her, in my connection to her as part of her bloodline, and I almost wished that I could produce again the abundant milk with which I had fed all my own children. 

As she is no longer contagious, we took Luna out to do the shopping and went for coffee at a sweet little coffee shop called BB's, short for Because Because, with poetry all over the walls.  We took Luna to a table right near the back, where it was completely empty, so that people would not be shocked at her appearance, as she still looks as though she has the plague, with big spots crusting over and chalky patches all over her skin, including her head, from the calamine lotion.  (We both agreed that if we had seen a baby like that we would have thought there was something seriously wrong and tried to keep our children away from her.)  Emma got us two coffees and a dainty little cupcake for Lunes, which she proceeded to eat with gusto, creating a small outline of crumbs under her chair, until she discovered that icing is not that wonderful to eat, but great to squish between your fingers, and also that it spreads very nicely over the table-top and your pram-cover sitting conveniently next to you. 

Presently an elegant young mother walked in and pushed her pram over to the table adjoining ours, even though there were many spare tables further away.  It was not with any idea of friendship, as they both ignored us from the beginning in a very complete way.  Her little daughter was about the same age as Luna, with an immaculate bob of black hair and a perfect red ribbon decorating it.  The flawless little thing sat in her pram under the covers like a small porcelain-skinned angel, eating a snack which her mother had given her from a container in her bag, in a delicate crumb-less way, while Luna smiled her big spotty-faced smile at her, until she realized that the other child was not going to acknowledge her.  Turning her attention back to the spreading of icing on the table-top, she quickly tired of that and decided that she would now calmly climb out of the high chair.  She was doing a pretty good job of succeeding in her endeavour when Emma helped her out and plopped her down, somewhat exasperatedly, on her lap.  Turning around and clambering to stand on her mother, Luna noticed the interesting bumps of drawing-pin-like decorations on the walls and proceeded to try to pick them off with her excellent fine motor coordination, and when that didn't work, attempted to bite them off using her very few, rather small, teeth to do the job.  When cautioned that this was not a good idea, she threw her arms up in abject desperation.

Three days old

Four month old mermaid

six-month old charmer

Eleven-month old spotted sweetpea

So this is our Luna: Luna of the direct gaze, Luna the music-lover, Luna the dramatic one, Luna the abstract thinker moving a box over to stand on as an aid in her attempt to be tall enough to climb on to the couch, Luna with the hands and gestures of her great-grandmother, Luna who talks to dogs, Luna the mermaid, Luna of the sweetest smiles, Luna the experimenter, Luna the curious, Luna the engaging charmer, Luna, who, in two days' time will be one year old, Luna, my first granddaughter, Luna, named for the moon, Luna the magnificent. 

Day 48

We are kind of stuck at home with a contagious baby, so our exercise today was a walk in a very chilly Richmond Park, with not many people around.  After that Luna had a checkup appointment at the doctor and because Stuart was still at work I drove Emma and the baby, so I can now say that I have driven in London traffic!  Emma said, "Are you sure you'll be alright, mom?", to which I responded, "Well Em, I drive in Boston."  She said, "Yes, but that's on the other side of the road!"   Anyway, it was fine, a little bit nerve-wracking but Emma is a very calm navigator and told me which lane I should be in and exactly where I should turn, even when I should put on my indicator!  So we made an excellent team which got us there and back quite happily. 

Richmond Park panorama with a squished car

Richmond Park is one of the green areas of London.  It is the largest royal Park in the city.  It was created by Charles 1 in 1634 as a deer  park for hunting.  (These kings sure loved hunting, didn't they?)  Between 1916 and 1925 the park housed a South African war hospital, which was a strange fact to suddenly read, during my research. 

It is so important for people to have green spaces, especially city people, and I love that there are all these parks throughout London.  Richmond Park has all kinds of different areas, and this part is rather desolate, particularly in winter, although there are crocuses budding already and daffodils well on their way. 

All my life I have been making quilts for people.  My first present for Tim was a quilt for his birthday, in early 1984, when we were still just friends.  So naturally, for Luna's first birthday, I decided to make her a quilt.  The thing is though that I also work best under pressure, so I frequently leave projects like this until the last minute.  Which meant that I finished the quilt at 12.30am on Thursday night, and got on the plane bound for England on Friday evening after a full day's teaching.  Jess, hearing this, said, "Oh mom, when will you learn?" because my children know me so well.  Such a good example I set, don't I?

Luna's quilt, with day and night and the moon and stars.

I recently read another book on slavery and abolition, a fictionalised account of the lives of Sarah and Angelina Grimke, two real women who fought against slavery and women's oppression in the 1800's in America.  One of the black characters is a brilliant seamstress, a slave who has to make all the clothing and curtains for the family to which she belongs, which includes the slave labor too.  And this all by hand!  She sews story-quilts in the few moments of spare time which she has, carrying on her mother's people's tradition from her ancestors, the Fon people of Africa.  Until now I was not aware that Africans had made quilts before they came to America, but apparently appliqué was common amongst the Fon.  Because they were never taught to read, many slave women put down their histories of violence and cruelty on their own story quilts. It was their way of telling their own stories.

It is a lovely thing to do, to make the gift of a quilt for someone.  Making a story quilt, or an appliqué quilt, is almost like painting a picture, except that the article you make can wrap around the person when they are sad, can keep them warm when they are cold, can drape over their shoulders when they are sitting on a hillside overlooking the sea thinking deep thoughts, can send them off to sleep under them with sweet dreams.

46 and 47

I couldn't post yesterday because we were in the back of beyond, a beautiful little place called Milford-on-sea, on the south coast of England, looking out over the English channel.

I arrived on Saturday morning at Heathrow.  The aspects of flying that I particularly love are takeoff and landing, seen from my window-seat.  (I also love banking turns, when you feel the plane tip and your side bends towards the earth and the angle of your view is strangely changed.)  This time I couldn't get a window-seat, which was very disappointing, and the only seat I could get was right in the middle of the middle seats, in the middle of the plane, with a toilet opening directly on to that row on either side.  I began to feel sick taking off, I think because my eyes need to see what it happening and then they can reassure the rest of me, but without a view, my body starts panicking.

After the six hours or so that it takes to travel over the wide Atlantic Ocean, the captain informed us that we would be flying in a holding pattern for a while because the there were so many delays due to gale-force wind in London.  We bumped around for nearly 30 minutes, passing through teasing pockets of air which jostled to play with us.  Eventually when we came into land I could see out of a window at an oblique angle because the girl on the aisle diagonally opposite me was scared and kept putting her head down in an attitude of abject misery, and even though I felt sorry for her I was also glad because it gave me a view.  I kept my eye on that patch of grey sky, as the plane dipped down and flew in very fast, as though the wind was giving it a push to spur it on, and for many minutes it seemed as if we were on a spaceship re-entering the atmosphere, every piece of the aircraft shuddering, every rivet about to burst its seams, and finally there were the houses rushing, and the ground came swiftly up to meet us, and then we were like a cormorant coming in to land, we were speed-waddling, arriving on first one wheel then the other, and finally settling to coast in on an even keel.  It was very exciting.

And then another long sit in a car, going down to Milford with my son-in-law to spend the weekend there for my ex-sister-in-law's 60th birthday.  Stuart is almost as famous for taking "the scenic route" as Tim is.  So we went through the New Forest, which must have been very new, because there were no trees, just moors.  There were signs up to warn motorists to avoid the wild horses, featuring a silhouette of a bright energetic little horse.

Sign warning motorists in the New Forest.

We saw many ponies, but none of them looked like that at all.  There had been a massive storm with torrential rains and flooding just the day before, and so the little ponies stood forlornly about in small groups, wet and sodden, looking utterly miserable, like so many moulting penguins.

The New Forest is actually very beautiful and full of trees, as we saw today when we came home the usual way, a completely different road from the one Stuart and I had taken the day before through the desolate heath.  This one went winding through dense forests all with a slight reddish coloration at the tips of the branches, where the next season is just waiting for a few warms days to spring forth.  The New Forest is a huge area of land which was designated in the 11th century as a hunting ground by William the Conquerer. Wild horses have lived here since before the last Ice Age, apparently, but all horses there now are semi-feral and are owned by people.

The New Forest is run by a group of Verderers, whose court building we drove past in Lyndhurst today.  This tradition has been carried on since 1070, with major changes to the laws in 1877.  I enjoyed the word, because my brain with its Afrikaans section, saw the word "verder" which means further, which had meaning for me because I had gone so far in the plane, and then even further in the car, and then the French part of my brain claimed it away from the Afrikaans, and I loved that part too because it meant green, as in verdant, or maybe the greeners, the people who keep things green, which is of course a very important job.  Long ago the Verderers were probably those awful people who dealt out terrible punishments to starving poachers, but today I'm sure they do much good.

The little artist with my pencil crayons.

The little spotted charmer.

And yes, my gorgeous little Luna did recognise me, and smiled and came to my happy arms, and even though she has chickenpox and has been rather miserable with all the bumps and temperatures, this morning she was happy to be strapped on to me with a mysteriously wonderful baby-sling which is basically a very long piece of stretchy material.  And so we went for a walk to the beach to air the two youngest members of our little celebratory group, me carrying my granddaughter, thus giving her parents a break, and my niece-in-law (ex-niece-in-law? too complicated) Paula being dragged along by the very energetic young dog Toffee, to give the others a chance to pack up without the interruption of chasing the dog who had stolen another item.

Toffee imitating a sleeping cow.

And it was lovely, such an honour, to have this little girl fall asleep to my singing and my stride, her soft cheek against my chest, and even though it was quite a long walk and she a solid sleeping weight,  it felt like floating.

45

Forty-five is how old I was when we moved to America.

Our driveway became a luge in the night, so I was very happy that Tim had worked so hard on it yesterday evening, and that I had then gingerly slid through the slushy mess with my car and parked next to the empty house at the bottom of the Hill.  (In winter it becomes the Hill, because it commands deep respect and sacrifice.) Then I walked back up in the pelting frozen rain, drenched to the chilled bone after shovelling the deck and clearing the cars of wet heavy snush (a new descriptive word for snow-slush).

Because I was going straight to the airport from school, it was quite a feat to lug all my baggage and school bags down to the car, over the ice without falling. We walked gingerly even with our special snow-spikes attached to our shoes, and I felt a strong desire to rejoice and sing out a few hallelujahs once we arrived at the car.  Next minute the kids next door came running happily down the hill with their schoolbags, ready to catch the bus, no snow-spikes or anything, just like any normal day!  The confidence of the strong-boned young!

So today is Valentine's Day, and I am leaving on a plane bound for England tonight.  It is such a commercialized day, and some people feel sad, some ecstatic.  I have loved the same man for a very long time now, and am happy that he is still my Valentine.  So another poem, because I have been teaching all day and now have to be on my way!  This was the poem for twenty-five years together.  The first letter of each line spells our names and the anniversary.

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Silver

Today we have twenty-five years together, our roots

In another country.  Here in

Massachusetts, dislodged, but growing together,

& happy with one another.

A long time, half a lifetime of moments

Not untinged with sadness, but

Nearly all good and worthwhile.

Each of us has changed

Slowly, sometimes unknowingly.

In discord and in harmony.  We are

Linked like the sign for “connected”, my

Vagabond soul with your more

Even temper.

Remember always our purity

An alliance, an affinity,

Not wavering

Never unravelling .

I  am still lucky, my

Vivid friend, my lover,

Electricity still shocks my heart

Reaching for you,

Seeing you come in at the doorway,

A man who still chooses me, every day.

Riding  through this night, this life,

You are my silver moon shining in the darkness…

44th day

Small snowflakes greeted us this morning, a soft dusting, yay!
Huge snowflakes the size of cheese puffs by midday, oh no!
Wet slush falling from the sky by 5pm, oh god (or goddess)!
Heavy stuff to move, this snowy sludge.  Tim did the lion's share, because he is the lion, after all!

Dogs, to continue where I left off yesterday, have all these wonderful qualities.  There are many books and sayings and memes and whatnot telling us that these are the ways of being to which we should aspire, so I won't do that.  The characteristic I most admire in dogs is their supreme cheerfulness, at the drop of a hat they will do a happy leap, a delighted dance.  We should all do a happy leap and a delighted dance every day. 

My first dog was a mongrel who followed my sister home from school, or that was the story she told.  I'm sure there was some persuasive patting and dog-whispering going on there too.  He was desperately thin and his paws were worn through when he arrived, and the vet reckoned he was about three years old, which was also my age at the time.  He just stayed with us for the rest of his life, in a very independent way.  Dogs in those days had free reign, but of course there were not so many cars then, and no gates to lock them in or out.  My dad guessed the dog's background when he observed Timmy (my brother's name was Timothy, so I really can't understand why my family decided that the best name for this dog was Timmy!) observing the horse and cart of a vegetable-seller and then falling in to run behind the cart for a while, before he seemed to realise what he was doing and let the cart clop off into the distance. (No, I'm not that old, but when I was little, we did have people who drove their horse-drawn carts around selling vegetables off the back of them.)

When my sister left home to study nursing two years later, Timmy became my dog, and followed me everywhere, my protector. 

Anne with Timmy the mutt.

The other dog with a huge character was Sasha, the crazy Lab/English Setter cross.  I got this dog when I was a first-year student at university, such a stupid act.  My mother and father scratched their heads at my shortsightedness.  How would I pay for her food, her vet bills, etc.?  But of course I was utterly in love with her by the time they heard about it and would not consider giving her up.  My daughter did a similar thing, history repeating itself, with her dog Onyx. 

Sasha was incredibly smart and independent, could open doors going inward or outward, knew every store in Grahamstown and was even welcomed by some of the store-holders each day.  The only foolish thing she did was chase seagulls on the beach, but then perhaps she just wanted to run for the joy of it, knew she would never catch them, just wanted to rush them to see them take off into flight.  Sasha could find her way home even if she had been driven 50 km away and sequestered in an enclosure with 3 meter high fences designed to keep deer from leaping out.

As she aged, she developed a horrible allergy to fleas, bearing the skin of the long-haired setter but the short hair of the lab, so she suffered from sunburn and an awful skin condition on her back, which just grew progressively worse until it smelt so bad and she was suffering so much that I had to make the decision to put her down, when she was just ten years old, and I was almost nine months pregnant with my second daughter.  She had lived a huge life, with many adventures, and been loyal and gentle and sweet and wonderful, because she was a dog, and that is who dogs are.

The beauteous Sasha

  So another poem for another death, written three years after she had died.

    Sasha
Fingers of my mind
Picking bones of the past.
The narrow skeleton of a white dog,
Skull - near perfect -
Sockets of fine smoothness.

Listen - the wind shrills -
The bones click and sing -
And almost remember
A seagull's cry - the flowing rush of limbs
In chase along an endless beach.

And almost I remember
Her brown eyes like a cow,
How carefully we watched each other,
Her head pressing my big belly,
As she plunged into the sky.

Day 43

I have given up gym for the next two days as I have no time, too much to do.  Priorities. 

I saw today on Boston.com, which I mainly look at for the weather (because there is ANOTHER snow-storm bringing wet snow, sleet, rain and then more wet snow tomorrow into Friday), that Sky, a wire-haired terrier, has just won best in show at the Westminster Show, meaning she is the top dog in America.  Such a strange thing, dog shows, quite awful really, because dogs are interbred so much that they end up having terrible health issues like labradors with epilepsy, and bulldogs who can't breathe.  

Toffee the bulldog - etching by Jess 2008

A film was made exposing these health issues which really count as cruelty to animals, and the BBC has since refused to broadcast Crufts Dog Show.  They have also lost all support from the RSPCA and other dog charities.  Crufts have pledged to put an end to the type of breeding where these things occur.

Our Molly was a case in point.  I would never have bought a pedigreed dog, but she just happened to "have papers", when we got her, in the roundabout way in which that happened.  Her full name was Midnight Molly for Mrs Martin, and we received her pedigree sheet showing her family tree.  But she suffered from horrible seizures and ADHD, if dogs can be diagnosed with that, poor thing.  She needed to run every day, as well as gallop and canter and bound and sprint and fly!

Mad Molly, as wild as a snowstorm.

She was so different from our Skye, our dear black lab in South Africa, whom we had to leave when we came to America.  Skye was the most mellow dog you could imagine.  The sweetest dog I have ever had, I think.  Our friend found her a home with a lovely artist in Zeekoevlei in Cape Town, which was the perfect place for her in every way.  Zeekoe means hippo in Dutch, and vlei is a shallow lake.  She was rather like a hippo, a little round thing who never lost her puppy fat, who loved swimming in any water, especially lakes, and for whom wallowing was a speciality. 

She once won Dogs: Best Trick, at a show for mongrels at the Village Green in Grahamstown.  Tim, taking into account her natural ability to pick things up and carry them about (she was constantly bringing us presents of stray socks or soft toys), had somehow taught her to fight with one of the boys' wooden swords.  When he picked up a sword and shouted "Hiyaaa!" she would excitedly grab the other one which had been left conveniently on the ground in front of her, and brandish it as skillfullly as a muskateer!   Only Tim wasn't there with us that day at the Village Green, so it was I who wielded the sword shouting "HIYAAAA!" for her to perform the trick, thus embarrassing all my children. 

Skye a.k.a. Spud-dog, on the beach.

When we came to America our first friends were the Taylors, who had a beautiful Irish setter named Mr Furley.  There were days when they worked long hours and couldn't let him out, so we ended up looking after him and then for a few days each week, virtually sharing him.  The boys were paid to walk him, which was a wonderful job for them! 

Mr Furley lying on the carpet - etching by Matthew 2005

When Mr Furley died we were almost as devastated as his real family.  I wrote a poem in his honour, and will end with it, because dogs are both natural and man-made, and a huge topic, so I will continue with dogs tomorrow. 

Requiem (for Mr Furley)

               

Easing our passage into this strange land,

You were gentle-natured, always happy

To be with us, sitting quietly or loping off for walks

To the winter Faun Bar, our beach

Where in summer we all swam together

You swimming alongside those you loved

Patient and sociable, sharing time and love

So equitably with your two families

Everyone always gladder for seeing you.

But today we weep, we mourn

Eyes suffering with such a grief

Heavy hearted, shards of memories reflecting.

For you, beautiful red dog

Have carried your last stone

Along the beach.

You’ve smiled your last dog-smile

Wagged your feathery tail

Spread your dignified gaze upon us all.

As you bound forth to greet Sirius

Your fiery coat is sleek 

And swift your bounteous long-legged grace

Forty-two

"Forty-two is a pronic number and an abundant number; its prime factorization  2 · 3 · 7 makes it the second sphenic number and also the second of the form { 2 · 3 · r }. As with all sphenic numbers of this form, the aliquot sum is  by 12. 42 is also the second sphenic number to be bracketed by twin primes; 30 is also a pronic number and also rests between two primes. 42 has a 14 member aliquot sequence  42, 54, 66, 78, 90, 144, 259, 45, 33, 15, 9, 4, 3, 1, 0 and is itself part of the aliquot sequence commencing with the first sphenic number 30. Further, 42 is the 10th member of the 3-aliquot tree. "   - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/42_%28number%29

And bats love aliquot trees!

The aliquot tree.

Matthew told me about the baobabs in Senegal.  Some of them are more than a thousand years old, and have ancient names and have been used in ritual and celebrations for generations.  He said that the people believe the trees to be immortal and have a custom wherein they lay new babies in the baobab's embrace in order for them to be assured of a long life.  

Giant old baobab

  The bark is capable of rapid regeneration after striping, even after the trunk has been completely ring barked. The bast fibres are still widely used for making strong and durable cordage. Indeed, in Bengal it has given rise to the saying “As secure as an elephant bound with a baobab rope”. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries the sun-dried bast fibre and wood was imported to Europe for the manufacture of a strong wrapping paper. Fortunately this practice is no longer - See more at: http://www.baobabfruitco.com/TheBaobabTree.html#sthash.VdsyN7Yc.dpuf

Baobabs are quite miraculous.  The people who live near them use every part of them.  Their hollows are good places to store things.  Their fruit is used for nutrition and the bark is used in medicine.  They do seem to have some extraordinary powers, compared to other trees.  For instance, a baobab can regenerate its bark even if it has been completed ring-barked.  

I love the fact that it is extremely difficult to chop down a baobab.  The wood is sort of spongy, and so if you strike it with an axe, as one would a normal tree, the axe is likely to become stuck and difficult to extract.  This characteristic of the baobab is like a natural deterrent that the tree has to stupid humans.   

These trees are often the only real vegetation for miles around, so of course the people living nearby are grateful for the shade and often congregate at a particular tree.  The more isolated trees have entire ecosystems living inside and on top of them.  Wild animals will use the holes as lairs, birds nest in the branches, and insects burrow in the nooks and crannies of the bark.  (I keep wanting to use the world "skin" instead of bark.)

Last night I had such a vivid dream about Evvie, our old domestic worker in South Africa, who came to work for us when Jess was four, and then was the boys' nanny when I went back to work.  Evelyn was a unique soul, bossy and loving, independent and proud.  She came to me in my dream to tell me that Matthew was sick.  When I woke up I thought that she knew about him because she was on the same continent and that she had somehow managed to communicate with me by entering my dream (yes, I have some odd ideas sometimes) and so we texted Matt but he replied that he is fine, fully recovered from his bout of illness.

And 42 is the answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything, in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams' wondrous five-book 'trilogy'. (Ah Douglas Adams, you died too young!)  A super-computer has spent millions of years working out this answer but apparently no one can remember the question.  So a huge computer the size of a small planet was composed of organic materials to find out what the question was, and it was called "Earth".  

The amazing Douglas Adams

Tim turned 42 the year we came to America, which is quite old to emigrate.  We were brave pioneers, leaping into the unknown!  The scary, possibility-of-disaster-filled future in another country where we knew one other family!  It is madness when you think of it, analyse it, but luckily we didn't, then.   

And now it is 11.42 and I must go to bed!

  The bark is capable of rapid regeneration after striping, even after the trunk has been completely ring barked. The bast fibres are still widely used for making strong and durable cordage. Indeed, in Bengal it has given rise to the saying “As secure as an elephant bound with a baobab rope”. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries the sun-dried bast fibre and wood was imported to Europe for the manufacture of a strong wrapping paper. Fortunately this practice is no longer - See more at: http://www.baobabfruitco.com/TheBaobabTree.html#sthash.VdsyN7Yc.dpuf

  The bark is capable of rapid regeneration after striping, even after the trunk has been completely ring barked. The bast fibres are still widely used for making strong and durable cordage. Indeed, in Bengal it has given rise to the saying “As secure as an elephant bound with a baobab rope”. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries the sun-dried bast fibre and wood was imported to Europe for the manufacture of a strong wrapping paper. Fortunately this practice is no longer - See more at: http://www.baobabfruitco.com/TheBaobabTree.html#sthash.VdsyN7Yc.dpuf

Day 41

Snow again so shovelling for an hour was my exercise.  For some reason I was careful of the snow mermaid and shovelled meticulously around her and so she lies there still, yearning for the sea, wondering if she will ever see it again.  I want to reassure her, because after all she is a version of water, and the snow-melt all plunges into the river around the corner, which flows lazily to ebb and flow with its mother, the vast Atlantic ocean.

Every morning I wake up, realise who I am and where I am, get my bearings.  Some days this is easy and virtually instantaneous and other mornings it is like crawling out of a foggy sheer-walled pit.   I think it is dreams which do this, because you are so far away in another world that you have to give your mind and your body time to come to terms with reality, you have to realise you are in your bed with the elephants marching over the blue and white duvet cover, that there is the soft beginning of light through the orange kikoi curtain, and yes, there is your husband lying with his arm flung over you, your fellow sailor on this nightly trip across the sea of dreams.

So once I know who I am I think of all my children, and wonder what they are doing right now.  I can picture them all, Nick walking through the dawn light of the city, past mounds of snow, going to work in the flower-shop, where he will arrange flowers, and fold paper around small bouquets, and be very charming, and smile his big friendly smile.  Matthew far away in Senegal, probably at the Research Centre trying to make his mind help his fingers write as well as he speaks French, absorbing all these new experiences, revelling in them.  Jess getting ready for work, dragging herself away from her darling babe, looking elegant and lovely and a little harrassed.  Emma having lunch with the other mothers and babies, keeping her busy baby in check, looking gorgeous, laughing with her eyes.

So when I have done all this wondering, I can get up out of the bed, and begin my day.

Wonder is what makes education happen, what makes experiments eventually work, or prove something.  It is why we explore continents and our brains, why fossils were discovered and why they proved how life began all those eons ago.

When we meet someone, we wonder what they are like, what they think of us, whether they read books, love dogs, play music, know about history, whether they are good in bed, whether they are creative, if they are faithful, promiscuous, cruel or kind.

When we are little we wonder about everything, and ask many questions until we find out what we wanted to know.  And sometimes it is what we wish we didn't know, because once you know something you can't un-know it.  And if it is shocking, like the Nazi concentration camps, or the situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo, or how they make paté de foie gras, there are images burned indelibly into your brain, damaging it forever.  

Tim brought me a beautiful pot of tulips, which are slowly opening their crimson petals, standing straight and tall on their stems, rooted in the pretty ceramic container with a Delft pattern.   And then about a week later he brought me flowers, cut flowers, which I put in my exquisite elephant vase which my daughters gave me many years ago.  They have ended up together on the table, almost touching, and I wonder if the flowers are jealous of the tulips.  Perhaps the tulips mock them, saying, look at us, we will be alive when you are dead and thrown on the ash-heap!  Or perhaps the flowers stand sadly in their vase of water, and the tulips, feeling sorry for them, tell them they look lovely. 

My plants are all inside for the winter, where they have to endure cold and spider-webs and the occasional infestation of some weird house-plant pest or other.  In the summer they go out on to the deck where the chickadees fly to them with greetings, and the rain wafts gently over them, and the summer sun beats down relentlessly, and all about them is life and air.  I wonder if they miss the world on the other side of the glass, and long for the little birds. 

I wonder how my little granddaughter will react to me in a few days time, where I will be suddenly three-dimensional, instead of the flat granny she knows who sings and claps with her on Skype and Facetime.  She is almost a year old now, but this is how young she was when she came to stay with us last summer.

then

and now.

 And I will probably only see my other little grandie when she is nearly a year old. 

then

and now.

I will choose a work of art for today, because I am too tired to investigate something else now, late at night, so here is a piece from a long long time ago, before writing and farming and cities and all the other things we call civilization.  It is a beautiful painting of a bison, from the cave of Altamira, in Spain, about 40 000 years old. The artist is unknown, the purpose is unknown, only supposition tells why the people of this time made these images.  But Art made the world, after all.