una

That birthday post was very delayed.

We came home that Sunday evening in a (very clean) glow of love and family to the news that my dear mother-in-law had gone into hospital.
Four evenings later on the 24th of May she quietly slipped away.

It's the way we'd all like to go I think - fit as a fiddle until 85, then a quick decline and a relatively comfortable passing - it was the right way, although there is never a right time, especially not for those left behind.

The numb feeling of loss is horribly familiar.

For my dear Charl especially - losing his mum so soon after his brother last year. Becoming an orphan. Feeling the family become smaller, more disjointed. His closest brother, and now his mum.

The following weekend we had a farewell tea for her at the retirement village she's been living at for the last 18 years or so, for the family but also for her friends.
As a recently bereft friend my heart ached for this sweet group of little old ladies. Walking frames, sensible shoes, stout winter coats smelling faintly of mothballs - they embraced us all and told us what a wonderful woman she was, a 'proper lady', and how much they'd miss her.
We will too.

Cake, tea, all her family and a slideshow of photos spanning 80+ years - she would have enjoyed it all so much.

I love this picture of her and Charl's Dad, who I never met. The dress and the 5th Avenue Cold Dark imply it was Christmas, or a party of some sort. The dessert in his hand ubiquitous, the giggle and squeeze so very sweet. The safari suit!

She was always an older granny for our girls, but she loved them dearly and they were so fond of Ouma.

The last time we saw her, on Mother's Day a few weeks before she passed, we lined her and Frieda up back to back - and had a laugh that Frieda had overtaken her. We teased her as to how she'd created this family of giants. 

She was a little lady, but with a big heart, and she gave us our husband and dad - and for that we will always honour her.

kick-starting grief

My dearest friend Zahida passed away just over 3 weeks ago. Super aggressive metastatic breast cancer, 14 months from diagnosis.
I'd written that last post some time before I published it. She read this blog and I was torn between not wanting to make the pain any more nuanced for her but needing to write this shit out. I had that in drafts and the Friday I published it she was in hospital, not answering any messages, my only updates were via her sister and part of me genuinely thought I'd not ever see her again.

I did. Twice over that weekend I was lucky enough to see her in hospital. Both times I was summonsed by that dear girl, just me and her family and her husband. We said our goodbyes, we said everything we wanted to say, we laughed together, we cried so many tears, we held hands and said thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

She passed away on the following Wednesday, first thing in the morning, and after the Janazah and the endless messages and calls, after we buoyed her family through the first 48 hours, even after her younger sister and I cleared out her closets and arranged a birthday party for her daughter - can you even conceive of turning 8 just a week after losing your mum? Even after all of that I couldn't really comprehend it.
I still couldn't have the ugly cry.

My body did all the things it likes to do in times of stress. A UTI, eczema and eventually sinusitis. I wasn't sleeping, I wasn't feeling and I wasn't grieving - not properly. I knew it was there, just out of sight, lurking, and I wanted to feel it. I felt so detached from her for not being able to weep.

So on Thursday I did what I'd been putting off, what I'd frankly wondered whether I would do at all.
I wrote the tear-jerker Facebook post, I put it out there. While I was writing it the tears came, and while I read all the subsequent messages and DM's and emails which it triggered I wept and wept.
I kick-started the grief and now it is here. And while it is awful, it also feels good to feel.

Molly 

22 March at 22:56 ·

It's been just over 3 weeks and I'm still in shock.

We were supposed to be crones together, Zahida and I. Stylish crones of course.

She made me try harder. She opened my eyes and filled my heart. She had the most magnificent laugh. She had the most enormous brain. 

We bore babies together, we cooked and danced and laughed and cried together. 

She filled my home with beautiful things, my life with joy and my head with questions and thoughts I'd never have had without her.

And in the last year she gave me the greatest gift - the honour of walking with her to the edge of the light.

About 6 months ago she said 'Are you sure you don't want to get off here Mols, it's going to be a roller coaster of a ride'.

I didn't once consider it, and I'll eternally be grateful that she allowed me to stay.

I only wish I was as sure how to navigate the world without her.

Miss you friend, miss you forever.

saying goodbye

In 2017 my dog, my brother, and my dearest friend all had cancer.

It was too late for my beloved dog, we still miss her so much.

My brother had 6 grueling months of surgery and chemo, 6 months of physical and emotional distress, and is now in remission and feeling stronger every day. He had his port removed a few weeks back and is slowly becoming himself again.

No one was joking when we said 2017 was a bitch.

For my darling friend it has been a year of surgery and chemo and more. The cancer is relentless.
We have embarked on the long, painful, surreal, beautiful, terrible journey of saying goodbye.

How does one do this? Turns out, like everything else in life it happens despite you. Days follow days and each day the reality grows - simultaneously filling you up and hollowing you out with grief, anger, disbelief and immeasurable beauty.

There is utter screaming rage at this senseless thing - this cunt of a disease which takes so much, which marches on regardless, which is not satisfied to just break the body but must simultaneously break the heart of the person you love as well, inflicting so many different kinds of pain.

There is grief which stares at you blank-faced around corners.

There is fear for the future, for tomorrow and next year. There is horrified disbelief that we live in a world where so many thousands of women die from a disease which is not yet curable.

And there is so, so much love, so much gratitude. So much honesty and freedom in the cavern of pain which allows the space to say 'I love you. I'm so grateful for our friendship. I am not going to be the same person without you. I will miss you forever.'

These are not words I'd planned to say to her for another 40 years, in reality I'd never have needed to - we know this about each other - but I'm saying them now every day, in my heart and in my words. These are the words which we use to stave off the darkness, to keep the glow of love burning brighter, for now.

There is a different kind of pain in finding comfort, a sting of guilt, but I must find peace in the places that I can - and my over-whelming gratitude for her influence in my life is the calmest well in the midst of this sadness.
That I will never say goodbye to.

the day it rained

Sad news made me very sad yesterday morning.
I was actually pleased that smaller daughter was off school with a cold so I couldn't really wallow -  it's hard to get properly emotional when someone keeps asking for toast with syrup and strawberries and your assistance getting to the next level of Angry Birds.
I imagine this is how mothers the world over keep on keeping on.

I got busy with tax submissions and other frightfully stimulating domestic tasks, popped out to buy some leeks and a bra ... you know, keeping on.

In the background the slow, agonising demise of Zuma churned away ... not for us the excitement of an overthrow, an assassination, a fit of conscience or a public resignation. No, just the living embodiment of the very South African phrase, now now. As in, Zuma is leaving now now. But when exactly remains unclear.
It's hard to drink celebratory champagne in slow disjointed sips. Not good for the bubbles really.
Can you believe it's been nearly a decade since this?

On the horizon thunderheads bubbled up, Google told me 'it's raining in Cape Town, stay dry' and the sun beat down unabated.

Later that evening my lovely parents came for supper.

We had a leek tart, mounds of roasted baby potatoes, beetroot, piles of fresh summery salady things, a fine wine, homemade panna cotta for dessert topped with juicy strawberries and figs, then more figs with blue cheese ... and more wine.
And while we were eating the storm outside got serious.

Thunder, lightning - after dinner we squeezed onto the stoep couch and ooh-ed and aah-ed at the light show playing out around us. At the rain pouring down.
The air got momentarily warmer, as the heat was released from the ground, and then deliciously cool.

My parents dashed out to their car, the girls off to bed, and I sat outside with the last of my wine and just one more fig, listening to the rain, watching the lightning and marveling at how one day can encompass so much.

Even in loss there is gratitude, even in drought there is rain.

UPDATE: He's gone! At 10:55pm on 'Zumatines' Day the old fuck finally resigned! Yippeeee.

hennie, aka tom selleck

Posts I've got in drafts:

- It's Spring and we've been in our lake house for 5 yrs!

- A week of Me and how I came back to life after the madness that was August!

- My Granny turned 100!

Post I'm writing instead: My lovely brother-in-law died and we are bereft.

Because life is weird and unpredictable and very, very strange. And we know this, but it hits home so much starker and harder when you lose someone in the very blink of an eye.

Hennie always knocked off early on a Friday. It was one of the perks of running his own business after years in super-corporate investment banking.

He came home early last Friday to mow his lawn. He always mowed his own lawn because he didn't trust anyone else to do it right, because he was particular about this (and very many things) and because he got great satisfaction out of it.

He mowed his lawn with focus and presence, possibly only wandering off in his thoughts to think about the pizza he'd be making for supper (he converted the whole family to homemade pizza, we've all been using his dough recipe for years, and always will), or the weekend ride he'd had last Sunday with his brothers and his niece (Frieda went as her Dad's pillion), maybe he had a chuckle at the latest hilarious atheist meme he'd messaged to his sister-in-law (me) the day before.

He mowed his lawn in the soft Spring evening air and just as he was finishing - edges perfect, minimal cuttings in the pool - a sudden massive stroke felled him right there and took him from us forever.

I met Hennie when I was 17. He was 37. In Afrikaans culture I should by rights have addressed him as 'oom' (uncle) because of the age difference, but being my boyfriend's brother closed that generational gap and I awkwardly called him by his first name, always feeling a little cheeky for doing so.

There was another reason I felt a little uncomfortable around him.

I'd only a few years back gotten over a teenage crush on this guy - Magnum PI - and my new boyfriend's brother, with his loooong legs, twinkly blue eyes, big mustache and cute giggle awkwardly reminded me of that only recently abated lustful interlude.

I'd had posters of both these images up on my bedroom wall for ages, along with MacGyver and Pancho - my other two tweeny heartthrobs. (Don't judge okay, it was the 80's!)

He was a difficult man then - painfully hygiene-conscious, hard, prone to ranting tirades about all the things he felt were wrong with the world (there were many), still the over-indulged eldest child despite being 1 of 4. All the family deferred to his wishes and as time went on and my position in it got more secure I started baiting him a bit, gently challenging him on issues and subtly telling him to STFU when he got too boring.

I remember once in a restaurant asking him if I could taste his guava milkshake - it seemed like an exotic flavour and I was intrigued. He was so taken aback he let me, and afterwards his other brother told me he'd never seen Hennie share a straw in his life.

Another time I accused him of being a pussy for making a huge fuss about a (smallish) spider, no one else would call him on his shit.

When we first moved to Observatory he commented that a 'lot of gay people' live there. I retorted that a 'lot of gay people' probably lived his neighbourhood too but just didn't feel as free to show it.

We disagreed on a lot of things, but strangely we liked each other a lot (and it wasn't just the Tom Selleck thing).

Hennie was a difficult man, but almost more than anyone else I know he changed. And he worked at changing.

He became less ranty, or at least would catch himself and laugh off whatever was supposedly offending him. He became far less bigoted and he and his wife regularly had dinner with a gay couple (who lived nearby!). He went through a long and measured introspective journey to embrace atheism. He started his own company as I said, and employed people from many different walks of life. He phoned his aged aunt every week for a long chat, he popped in for breakfast or lunch with his mum at least twice a week, he had her over almost every Saturday evening for a braai, or his famous pizza.

He mellowed as he got older, he got gentler.

The last time my husband saw him he was wearing a t-shirt which said 'Normal People Scare Me'. Sheldon Cooper was his profile pic.
He was a funny guy.

He was only 62.

My husband loved him. As a brother, as a friend. They would spend hours on the phone talking bikes and cars. Hennie used to come and LAN game at our house once a week for years before we selfishly started having children. They'd go for rides together, fix things together, laugh at idiots together.
He shared a birthday with Frieda.
We joke he's the source of her long legs.
The girls loved him.

He was the most charismatic curmudgeon I've ever met. He was a gentle giant. For a grumpy guy, he made a lot of people happy.
RIP Hennie, we will miss you so.

Lego

I've postponed writing this, because I honestly don't need any prompting to blubber like a baby over the loss of my magnificent furry friend - I've shed enough tears over the last few weeks without having to look at pictures and write stirring words.

But she deserves her own special mention - she deserves to be cried over every day. And I need to get back to this space which I didn't feel I could without noting this moment first.

Lego is gone. Her cancer progressed faster than we'd believed it could - but right on schedule for these canine diseases it seems. The vet gave her 6 - 8 weeks from diagnosis, she made it to 7.

She came to us in January 2009, by air from Johannesburg. We'd seen pics of her with the torso and arms of a man in the background, and based on our assumption of her size we picked out a collar and lead, a couple of feeding bowls and some toys and went to the airport to fetch her from cargo.

A big wooden box came trundling out on the conveyor with a teeny-weeny little pup inside. Turns out the arms who had held her in the pictures belonged to a boy and she was much smaller than we'd expected, the collar we had for her much too large!

She and Frieda were firm friends from day one, up to all kinds of mischief.
Lego would nibble Frieda with her sharp puppy teeth until I felt a bit self conscious of all her scratches - Frieda didn't mind - and Frieda used to try and protect Lego from trouble by kindly covering up her illicit puppy poos with whatever was handy - even kitchen cloths and her own clothes!

She was a handful at times, raising her was challenging in places - she was our first dog you see, and firstborns are firstborns really. But she fit with us so well, she was so loyal and so stoically and devotedly there. I trusted her implicitly.

And she trusted us. Which is why, after her diagnosis, I promised her we would never take her to the vet again (she hated trips to the vet) and why, when she was so lumpy you couldn't touch her without her flinching - gently and apologetically 'til the end, we made the decision to call the vet and when he came, we held her in our arms, in her bed, and whispered love and reassurance to her as she slipped away.

The neighbour played violin in the background. I kid you not, that really happened. [Edited for clarity : at her house, next door, completely unaware of how bizarre sad violin was for us at that moment.]

I miss her. I miss her grunts of communication which were as clear (if not clearer) than most of my children's communications with me.
I miss her watchfulness, I always felt safe with her around. I miss her companionship, she slept at my feet for most of her last few weeks. I miss her love.

I've got some people in my life going through some hard shit. Cancer, divorce - massively disruptive and sad life events - and I've felt badly, in the midst of all this, grieving for my dog. But as one of my wisest friends said, 'Family is family, no matter the species'.

Lego was part of our family. She is gone and we miss her.

right now

It's hard to blog when all the big things happening around me at present aren't my stories to tell.

Big things happening to people who are big in my life - filling me with sympathy, sadness, fear and fragile feelings of maternal tenderness.
There's a lot of them - people I love at whom life is throwing some big curve-balls.

WTF life??

The things I can write about are a mixed bag ...

... my Lego is failing fast. When the vet said 6 - 8 weeks, 6 weeks ago, I kind of scoffed. How could he be so sure when we've no idea how long she's had the cancer for? Turns out he knew (being a vet and all I guess). In 10 days time I go to Joburg for a week ...

... Joburg for a week to run logistics on a fab project. It'll be a week of hard work and hard play - my favourite kind. Johannesburg is interesting this time of year - icy cold nights (way colder than CT ever gets) and still, warm days. Good people, some of whom were with me in Durban last year, and interesting work. I'm looking forward to it, were it not for my ailing furbaby.

But in other news - we finished our bath renovation!

Well, besides for a small snag list ...

But it's lovely, very 'executive' as my brother called it (i.e. black and white and sleek), and now of course - totally different to the rest of our house.

It's been about 6 months in the making - the old bathroom was ripped out in November - and we've had the work done slowly as we've had the cash, or inspiration. We're 'hashtag blessed' to have had other loo's to use in this silly big house of ours. It's been fun, and we're hoping to keep up the momentum. We've been reminded that we love doing this, and I think we're quite good at it.
Photographing a bathroom is hard though - thank goodness for that massive reflective shower screen!

Life is hard, life is beautiful, life is relentless. What would we do without it?

the hard stuff

A friend who is battling cancer did such a good Facebook post this week.
Couched in a wry, humourous story about her kids, she subtly updated her broader friends as to where she's at in her treatment.
For those who hadn't known she created a light space in which to reach out with their love and concern, for those that did, some light relief from the heartache of watching a good friend go through this.
There was no pity party, no drama, no big announcement - just a gentle 'this is my life now and it's hard but still full of love and laughs and we carry on'.

It's hard to tell other people when you're having a shit time. You feel self-conscious about ruining their day or happy mood, you feel like you're trying to illicit sympathy, but it's more about needing people to know - this is what's up with me, it's not that great.
Be gentle.

What's up with me is that my doggie is dying.
Lego has lymphoma and the prognosis, 4 weeks ago, was 6 - 8 weeks.
She will be 9 this year. She hates going to the vet. Her liver is affected, her lungs and possibly her heart. For these reasons, and others, we're not going to attempt chemo.
We're going to keep her comfortable for as long as we can and then one day, soon I fear, we're going to phone our lovely vet and ask him to come here and put her to sleep in her bed, in our arms.

She knows. She's slowing down for sure, still eating and being herself, but slowing down. Yesterday she didn't come outside when I was throwing bits of wood for Orca, usually a game she'd get involved in, just watched from the door with a waggy tail and a sad eye. She's always been good at the sad eye my Lego, there's a reason we sometimes call her Eeyore.

She sticks close, wandering in with her 'don't mind about me' demeanour, to plonk herself down with a grunt and a nudge, and sleep at my feet. In the evenings she comes to tell me it's couch time - time for TV and a cuddle. In the night she wakes me with an apologetic nose, to let her out or fill the water bowl which is no longer lasting 'til morning.

She knows and she's saying goodbye.
I know and every chance I get I'm saying, in the ways in which she understands, 'I love you Lego'.
This is what's up with me, it's not that great.

livelikeadam

I've written about Adam here before.

It sometimes puzzles me that he has stayed SO present in our consciousnesses. Not because he wasn't a singularly special guy - clearly he was - but he died so very long ago now, he featured in my life for such a relatively short time, it's been many years ...
And while I imagine it's because his death, and the circumstances around it, were so shocking that we've not ever forgotten it - and that we were friends at such a formative time of our lives - I also keep coming back to this: he was special. Like, really special.

So special that in December, 20 years after Adam left us, a group of 30-40 of his friends gathered again to remember him.

In their 40's now, a little rusty on their boards but more at liberty with their emotions, his brother and closest pals paddled out to hold a space for Adam one beautiful summers evening in a bay which knew him well.

Us land-lubbers stayed on the rocks, not even pretending that our watering eyes were the fault of the setting sun.

Many of us had not seen each other since back then, some have had misunderstandings and falling outs over the years, but we reunited with a frankness and gentleness that was pure Adam and the time we shared in the golden light as the day ended was in a bubble of his energy.

This is his legacy.

the ups and downs of October

This post is to filed under 'diary'. I need to record this last crazy month for myself, for the record.

I've come here so often with an opening line, a thought or an observation, but the back story has always been so enormous - October's stories have been enormous - that I've either shied away or the next thing has happened before I could finish writing/processing about the last.

Emotional ro-la-co-stah. I'm tired just thinking about writing about it.

October is a beautiful month (which month isn't really right?), but this one has brought some pain.

On the 1st of the month one of my very best friends was admitted to hospital after weeks of what we all then thought was 'flu.

That weekend, beloved English cousins currently living in the States woke to the news that their 23 year old son had died in his sleep.
Shock rippled around the world as we gathered in small digital huddles - on FB messenger, Whatsapp and eventually a Tribute Page - trying to cradle a family in unimaginable pain with words and images shared on these platforms, knowing that none of it worked as well as a hug, but that all the hugs in the world wouldn't heal their hearts.
When a healthy 23 year old guy dies in his sleep on a Saturday night there is one conclusion that everyone jumps to, and from the talk it does seem he lived a colourful life - partying and living it up in the film industry in which he worked.
But louder then that were the reams of words testifying to his gentle care of those he loved, his sense of humour, his intelligence, his diligence to his work, his magic touch with animals - all these words proven by the multitude of photos of him shared on the page, in each one of them he has his arms around someone.

I recalled so vividly the boys like him I knew at that age. Young, gorgeous, healthy young men who worked, had plans, took their jobs and their lives seriously, earned well, and partied hard. Those boys were the best friends a girl could have, watchful and caring, they were the most fun to have at a party, loud and gregarious and hilarious, they were generous with their love, their time and their drugs - and after a heavy night out they would go home to Sunday lunch and be the most attentive, genuinely devoted sons and brothers. They thought they were invincible.

So many are lost in grief at his passing.

On the 4th we celebrated our 13 year wedding anniversary.

It was a magic evening, warm and golden and still. We'd made no plans, but that afternoon I remembered two bags of prawns in the freezer, a bottle of very fine wine we'd been saving, a box of creme brulee magnum ice-creams I'd seen at our local store ... I lit the fire and watched the girls play wildly on the lawn as we waited for the sound of his motorbike arriving home.
We ate grilled prawns 'til the butter ran down our arms, washed down with sublime wine, and grinned stupidly at each other over our daughter's heads. 13 years.

A couple of nights later we ditched the girls and went out for a proper grown-up dinner in our beautiful 'hood.

But still my friend was in hospital, and the news was not good. An inflammation of the spinal cord, a rare auto-immune condition, crippling pain and uncertainty about the path ahead.
Sobering updates as we rallied around her family, setting up an online meal roster to cook for them, a Whatsapp group to keep all those concerned in the loop.

I traveled to Pretoria for work. Twice.
Pretoria was hot, and dry, but magnificently purple.

Jacaranda trees were introduced a hundred years ago, blatant invaders from South America, for their beauty and their shade. They kind of hung around and once a year transform Pretoria from a fairly drab and run-down city to a psychedelic wonderland. Well played invaders.

The work was good, the people I met inspirational and fun.

Our country has had a hard month too. Our Minister of Finance is facing trumped-up charges of misconduct, leveled at him by a President fueled only by his greed. Our students are rising up to demand the education promised to them 20 years ago, and getting beaten in the streets by our dysfunctional police force. Our academics and universities are reeling from the damage - to their campuses and their careers. Our general public are split down the middle on a topic so complex that you can only see it in black and white if you're at the heart of a the struggle or being a total asshole. Their are a select few who are both.
It's a fucking mess.

The activists I was in Pretoria with were for the most part much younger than me, black and very active in education. We spoke at length about the current situation and it was so reassuring to me, a white, middle-class, (cough) middle-aged lady, to check in with them and find that we shared many opinions on these issues. It's easy when you live among your peers to believe that you're right. It's a gift to step out of that circle and find others, very different to you, who feel the same. I love my work for the worlds it opens up for me.

Back home and straight into a very special celebration. My Dad turned 70.

Which necessitated a party, with some of our dearest family friends, and a rainbow cake for the birthday boy, with ants on it - because he's all about the ants, about the ants, no spiders - according to one of his silly granddaughters.

And then another anniversary - a really BIG one.

On the 24th my man and I marked 25 years together - a silver anniversary - from bumbling high school sweethearts to married-up parents.
We celebrated with an enormous bunch of chinkerinchees, a bottle of bubbly and the gift of a vintage silver dollar from my parents. How exactly did I get this lucky?

And still ... my friend is in hospital. Still battling pain and an uncertain future, but still smiling when she can, still strong, still her.

This growing up thing is not for sissies, the realities of life and aging are hard and painful. But the love, the love just gets stronger and sweeter - and the knowledge that that is all that is important gets clearer every day.

This year has worn us out already - is it holidays yet?

gone too soon

Last Thursday I celebrated 22 years with my husband. On that same afternoon a friend lost hers in a light plane crash.

Devastating. A word I've thought, said, typed more often since then I probably ever have. 

Devastating.

I've been struggling so much with this one. We don’t know them that well, but the time we've spent with them my husband and I felt such a connection, a meeting of like-minded souls which has become very rare as we've gotten older. I know they felt it too.

If we’d lived closer I've no doubt we would be close friends. When we have seen each it’s always been warm and empathetic. We laugh at the same things.

They have two young children. We have two young children. The horror of having to guide your children through the loss of a parent as you suffer your own inconsolable grief is terrifying.

They were soul mates. We are soul mates. We both think they were one of very few couples we've met whose relationship seemed to operate similar to ours. They were partners. We are partners. They loved each other dearly. We love each other dearly. The reality that such a treasured person can be taken from you is sobering and horrific.

Devastating.

And also, what the actual FUCK?

I will never understand how a man – a warm, compassionate, loved, positive, energetic man, a father and a husband – gets whipped away on a sunny afternoon while hundreds of wife-beating, double-crossing scum live long into old age.

If I was religious I could put it down to ‘God’s plan’, which I should not question, just ‘trust’. This may be why I’m not religious.

But I am spiritual (it’s possible, really it is), and I have been thinking a lot these last few days about destiny and fate.

Was it always his destiny, while building a life, a marriage, fathering and parenting two children, making plans, hoping, dreaming, that he would leave it all too soon, too soon for anyone?

Was it always her fate to be a young widow?

And while I’m at it, was it coincidence that two of their dearest friends were planning to visit them this last weekend, so that they were the first to arrive after she got the news? There to guide her through that first surreal, unimaginable 48 hours?

I don’t know the answers to any of this. All I know is there is a patch on my heart rubbed raw for her, for her children. My tears are but a drop in the ocean of their grief.

Devastating.