a birthday post, looking back, owing you an apology

It's my birthday tomorrow. I'M NOT FORTY YET!!

This is the most relevant thing.

I've been looking back at birthday posts, it's been fun.

In 2009 I had a list of birthday loveliness which made me feel warm and fuzzy reading it again. And sad that this year my Grandad won't be phoning me.

In 2010 I was a new second-time mum and still had time to list 35 things ... why don't I have that kind of time now??
Also I realised I still bake pretty much the same things for birthdays ... then:

And now (taken this afternoon): there was also gin again, but why wouldn't there be right?

And use the same crockery.

In 2011 I was pretty low-key but got unnecessarily shirty with someone in the comments. Silly me.

And last year we were too busy doing this to celebrate, blog or indeed even really notice my birthday.

I think I've another birthday contemplation type post brewing, or maybe not, but the thing which struck me while reading back in time was how many readers left really lovely comments, which I never responded to. I know my whole blogging philosophy here is to just write, without thinking about who's reading it and what they necessarily think about it, but it strikes me now as arrogant that I didn't even say thank you for lovely warm birthday messages, and only deigned to respond when someone irked me a bit.
I'm sure I've alienated readers over the years for doing that, and while I'm still blogging like nobodies reading, on a human level I think I've been a bit rude. I apologise.

See? Older and wiser.

lists of 5: 'cos no other number will do

My fancy Jo'burg manicure is starting to fade and chip, I could poetically say like my memories of the weekend but that wouldn't be true.
My memories are still clear and still fabulous.

My cat is asleep nestled into my neck like a newborn as I type this, making little huffs and snuffles as she cuddles in. Just like a baby.
My friend in Jo'burg will have a baby just like this (though hopefully less hairy) in a few short weeks and while I'm not envious in the slightest of the newborn part, I did get a taste again of that excitement of meeting someone new. Someone new but yet of you in the profoundest sense possible. There can't be anything else much in life which beats that.

My birthday cake is sinking slowly in the kitchen. It's one of a few birthday cakes I've planned actually, as I have more than one (though both little) celebratory events in the pipeline - both involving cake. I've been baking and prepping at a slow and steady pace all week and really enjoying it (I don't allow myself to bake often these days), but I do worry that instead of clever this will prove to have been not clever, and everything will be a little stale and naff.
The carrot cake will definitely, judging by it's current appearance, be a little sunken and naff. But I also trust, delicious.

My children are exposing me to people who are teaching me things about myself. Yes, my children are bringing people into my life. That alone is a strange thought. Stranger still is the notion that they are people through whom I'm being challenged. More on this soon I imagine.

My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard. No, not really. Not really at all, I just think that's such a weird and nonsensically fabulous line. Which I'd never otherwise have a chance to use!

making tracks

I'm off to Joburg tomorrow to spend a few days with one of my best friends.

It's been too long, it'll be too short. And I couldn't be happier to be doing it.

green

The topography of Cape Town means that some suburbs - those closest to the mountains - are lush and tree'ed, green and shady. These are the wealthy ones.
The further from the mountain one gets the less shade there is, the less green, the less wealth.

It's not just in Cape Town that shade belongs to the wealthy though right?

Shade ... feels luxurious. It dapples, it hue's, it gives texture and depth and mysticism and richness to everything around it.
Driving from Hout Bay, over Constantia Neck and down through Bishop's Court to Tokai (all four amongst Cape Town's wealthiest suburbs) is to travel through an almost continuous canopy of different greens. It relaxes the eyes, and also the shoulders. It draws one out of the car, out of your thoughts, and sets your mind free to gambol in the lushness of it all.

Well it does me. I've a bit of a thing for leaves.



It was only as I left the canopy, drove out into the light, needed to find my sunglasses and crack the window for some air, that I contemplated green and its association with wealth.

Large sprinklers ticking across deep green lawns, the colour of money, the leafy suburbs, proud old oaks on the grounds of proud old schools, going green - and having the time and resources to do so, shady nooks, summer in the Hamptons ... rich, fertile, green.

On the subject, I'm starting to plan my first herb and veggie garden. The thought terrifies me, I'm not known for my green fingers, but I like the idea of growing to eat and I love the idea of popping out to pick something for dinner.
Apparently growing one's own veggies is like printing one's own money - let's see.

holding the space

A new, hippie-ish, phrase I've heard a lot recently, bit it's growing on me.

I had an amazing yoga class last night. I suspect that listening to people go on and on about how much they love their sport must be up there with as boring as listening to their dreams, but nevertheless yoga last night was inspiring and therapeutic and cleansing and just ... amazing.

One thing I love about yoga is what a solitary pursuit it is. My teacher likes to say that no matter how large or small the class, it's just you and your mat, and what you make of it.
The space to think, or not to think, is limitless, and what I found myself thinking about as I sweated it out through the movements last night was another solitary space I've been occupying recently.

I bought myself a stand-up paddle board a couple of months back, to punt around the lake and work the core and have a water sport all of my own, and I love it. On Sunday I went out, exploring further from home than I've done before, and found myself alone. So rare.
Alone but for a million coots, a couple of hundred ducks, a handful of pelicans, jumping fish, sail boats in the distance, a lone canoeist arcing through the water in front of me. Glassy water and perfect sun on my shoulders. Alone and chanting, in my head, 'hold this space, hold this space, hold this space, hold this space because you know you'll need it.'
But I also needed to focus on cutting my paddle through the water, 'don't drop it, don't drop it, don't drop it', the growing ache in my shin muscles (yup, who knew one had shin muscles right?), looking out for patches of dense water weed, and as with most things the magic got lost a little in the detail.
I came home happy and tired, but wishing I could have crystallized the feeling, caught it in amber to hang round my heart.

And then during yoga last night I did. I revisited the water, and in complete clarity brought up all the things I'd  experienced on Sunday afternoon - the smell of the water, the sounds of the water birds, the wind whistling through my paddle, the impenetrable mass of the lake, the freedom and calm, completely without concerns about falling in.
While my body exerted itself in other ways my mind floated like a bubble over the surface of the water, I found the space was still there, and I held it.
I hold it still.

lists of 5: 5 reasons I'm already feeling better.

- a big weep, a couple actually
- yoga this morning
- her 3 hour nap
- smoked salmon for dinner
and most preciously,
- so much warmth, love and support from friends far and near ... thank you.

These are the things which have me feeling better today.

keep on walking, this one's for me

God, I feel dull. Dulled really, dulled, and a little numb to be honest.

My days are so difficult with my incredibly demanding 3 year old, with my life as it is at present, and every time I think to moan I'm brought up short by feelings of how little I deserve to do so, by the knowledge of how boring it is to hear someone complain.
I know I'm sounding like a stuck record to my friends, I can't complain about Stella's behaviour for much longer without sounding like a dramatist, sounding and feeling like maybe I'm just channeling all my other present dissatisfaction through her. That she's just the innocent receptacle I'm filling with my own unhappiness.

But she's fucking not. She's a radically hard work little lady, she's a brat, a bully, a rude and spoilt little bitch - and I say this all with so much love, so much love and sympathy and heartache for where we are right now.

Because we're in a bad place. I'm in a bad place and she's stuck in it with me, and this is not a good thing.

Taking stock of 'my new life', this house and area and rhythm we live in now, I've realised a couple of hard truths.
Since September last year I do more:
- child care
- domestic duties
- actual paying work
- driving
- worrying
... and less:
- socialising
- me stuff
- writing
- parental debriefing.
In exchange I have more:
- views
- space
- responsibilities
- worries.
Doesn't look very healthy does it?

Is it any wonder I'm feeling dull? And should I really be surprised that I'm not coping with the challenge of a bright, inquisitive, strong-willed small person currently experiencing her first really difficult life transition?

I don't know which I find more difficult - the times when she's screaming at me in obstinate utter refusal to comply with a simple request (is wearing underwear really such a biggie?) or when she's keening for me to 'uppie' her, wanting to be my 17 kg 'baby' and be carried up and down the stairs 4 times to fetch each individual sock and sneaker because for some fucking reason they can't all be brought downstairs at the same time? What the FUCK is that?

I don't have it in me to be creative about this shit this time round. I go straight from everything's fine to I want to die in under 5 seconds. I'm morbid and selfish and deeply, deeply unsatisfied with this role I'm cast in at the moment.
I don't want to be a mother or a housewife or even a particularly nice person. I don't even want to have to think about it anymore.
I just want .... what?

I just want it to be different. I just want tomorrow to be different. And yet I know there's a whole lot of tomorrow's to get through before it is.

dreaming as therapy

I probably shouldn't share this story. I already feel somewhat responsible for some of the readers of this blog's decision not to have children.
As I said recently on the other blog, blogging about parenting is a constant balance between trying not to gush too much, and not wanting to be an awfully moaning bore. Parenting does however seem to occupy one or the other of these extremes most of the time.

So I won't go into too much detail about how COMPLETELY FUCKING NUTS my just-turned 3 year old is driving me.
I'll just relate the dream I had two nights ago and let that speak for itself ...

I dreamed I was at some lovely day time event, sans kids, facing a massively indulgent buffet table, perusing the options.
I selected a thick slice of farm baked bread, spread lusciously with butter and my Mum's delicious apricot jam.

As I walked away from the table savouring this treat a scrawny teenage Goth girl approached me and whined, 'Aw, please can I have a bite?'
I wasn't thrilled but begrudgingly offered my slice to her, whereupon she started moaning, 'Why did you put jam on it? I hate jam? Scrape the jam off!'

In my dream I saw red. With the flat of my hand I ground the whole slice of bread, butter and jam hard into her whiny face, eventually causing her to topple over and when she was lying on the ground, I stood over her, placed my foot on her chest and, pushing down hard, shouted at her to SHUT UP and never, ever speak to me like that. EVER!

If there was ever any doubt that one's dreams tackle one's subconscious, lay those to rest. My dream blew off some of the steam which mounts within me every day during this incredibly challenging parenting stage we're in.
Sorry little Goth girl, but thanks for the release.

a thimble

My heart felt like a thimble these last weeks. Filling so quickly with emotion that it brimmed over my eyelids and had me tearing up a couple of times a day, then leaving me so hollow that I felt as if I'd swallowed an echo.

It started with my reminiscences of Adam, and an email conversation I had with his brother which was so good, but so emotional.
Then a rape and murder which rocked the whole country, got so many stories circulating, so many emotions rising.
I heard of a child from my home town, 18 months old, drowned in his family pool.
A story of a childless woman weeping while watching her best friend breastfeed.
Bad news regarding my friend's continuing struggle with cancer.
1 Billion Rising, and the stories ... god, the stories of abuse.
And then Reeva Steenkamp ...

None of this pain really belonged directly to me but with my shallow heart of late I couldn't prevent taking it on, and spent days feeling exposed, hollow.

None of this pain has lessened in the slightest - so many are out there with their hearts completely drained, their wounds wide open to the salt raining down on them.

And here I am, after a good weekend of friends and family, food, sunshine, laughter, feeling much stronger.
Have I slapped another coat of tin on this heart of mine? Is life sometimes just too much, the only survival tactic we know to clad ourselves against the pain, make our hearts a little more impenetrable, albeit little heavier maybe, and then shoulder on?

We desensitise in order to carry on, but what future do we walk towards if our hearts are plugged against the  pain of others?
What point is there in feeling too much and what future is there in feeling too little?

I don't know, but I need to find a balance this week. I think, certainly in South Africa, we all need to.

Adam

On Tuesday he would've been 37, but he never made it to 21.

A talented surfer, experienced water baby, inexplicably he drowned during a shallow dive on the Transkei Wild Coast a year or so after we all finished school.
He was there with friends who pulled him out the water and drove him over bumpy rural roads to the nearest settlement, but he'd gone in the water. Blacked out and slipped away.

We were all scattered around the world when we got the news, but his funeral was huge. And horrible. I've not seen so many men crying together before or since.

On Tuesday I went to the Red Hot Chili Peppers concert with a dear friend from high school. It was incredible. The music I'd known would be good, but I'd not expected that pure, white hot energy.

I'd been thinking about Adam anyway, I always do on his birthday, and we spoke about him that evening, but during the concert he came to mind again. He'd had that energy - taut, electric, unstoppable we'd thought.

What do you do with a friend who died so long ago? I've no idea what he'd be like now, I can't look to my male friends of the same age and see him in them. Even by the time he died we'd lost a lot of contact, I didn't know what his life plans were.

In my mind he burns a bright 16 year old flame, hot energy, golden light, never still, fiercely bright. We talk about keeping the memory alive, but with him I've never had to try. Eternally young, he lives on and on for as long as those who knew him do.

I've thought about contacting his Mum, I imagine she'd be the most comforted for knowing this. Should I call her to say I remember his smell? Would she want to know I remember how his hair felt, the shape of his ears, how his mouth tasted?

One year, unbeknownst to me, he wrote all over my pencil case: 'Adam is King.' It would amuse him to know that every year, on 5 February, he is. Over and over again.