preaching to the choir

This evening I had the thought I should possibly work on being less sarcastic.

I love sarcasm. It's hilarious and succinct - reams can be conveyed in the simple lift of an eyebrow.

But it's a cheap trick, and I do believe one needs to master a whole lot more nuance about human behaviour before you should wield it about.

Ergo, maybe I should be less sarcastic around (and, I meekly confess, to), my children. Frieda's grasp of the tone is shockingly advanced for her age, and she's been known to think I'm being sarcastic even when I'd no intention of sounding so.
Not cool.

But my second thought was this: each post I publish here gets minimum 35 readers. I think I know most of you.

So this place, where I used to freely address strangers, my 'blog like nobody's reading', is in fact these days like talking to my nearests and dearests.

And you all know I'll never kick sarcasm.

Maybe I should just work on my delivery instead.

notes from 1993

It seems a theme is developing. Building on my ample time to resurrect old memories while crippled earlier this year, yesterday I opened an old memory box and pulled out a bunch of diaries from the 90's.

At first I thought my weekend would be consumed by them, but after randomly picking up a 1993 edition and immersing myself in my 18th year, I think I'll work through them more slowly.
So much to remember, so much to learn.

21 years later, that Molly, the 1993 version, has shown me ...

That she would be so, so happy to know that she is now married to Charl. That they have two little girls and a wonderful life.
In 1993 I'm still counting down our anniversaries in months, and my weeks hinge around seeing him again.

That I have always been creative.
I know that obviously. I have my means of expression (birthday cakes being right up there), but I've also always had friends who create for a living - beautiful handmade things - and I suspect that has prevented me from taking myself seriously, or made me vaguely apologetic for the very homemade nature of my handwork.

That I spent very few weekends and holidays at home. As an adult daughter, and a parent, this sobers me, but I have also been reminded about so many good times with wonderful friends ... foundation-building times, for friendships and myself.

If I'm bored I don't make the effort. I've often regarded this as a character flaw but you know what, I've always been like this. My school results from first quarter 1993 will confirm - winging it in English and History, barely scraping through the rest.
Life's too short you know?

I'm always telling a story. There's a narrative, a bunch of sub plots, character definitions, scenery, atmosphere to every experience I have. I'm telling myself as it happens and I rewrite and hone in my subconscious for long while after.
So why the fuck aren't I writing this stuff down?
There are clippings for writing competitions stuck all over 1993, I don't recall entering anything to any of them. Have I been carrying the same writer's block for 21 years? No wonder my fucking ankles are going.

That I was happy. As grown as I felt, I can see now that despite being 18, and world wise and clubbing and going on road trips and wearing big girl pants, I was still at school, living with my parents. From 2014 I still look very much like a child.

But I was strong, and confident and adventurous too, and this pleases me. My god, 18 was fun.

collage

I've rewarded myself (after the stupid, stupid job I've just finished) with a month of collage classes with this lady.

I can't draw. Or sew. The medium I've always been most comfortable in is paper, and I've been playing with collage since high school.
[SIDE TRACKED! I went off looking for a collaged workbook I knew I still had from 1992 and found my old diaries ... there goes my weekend!]

all mine

Naturally I signed up for the course and immediately started a 'collage' board on Pinterest.

someone else's

I've no idea what to expect, and I'm very happy to remain ignorant until class starts and let the ideas rush in then, but it doesn't hurt to hone your eye right?

I'm drawn to changing perspective and message through simple techniques.

eugenia_loli

Nick Paliughli

I like the use of negative space.

Jeorge Chamarro

I'd like to tell something of my life.

But my god I'd also love to be able to do this.

Derek Gores

And I wish I'd made this.

But all my (cough) best work thus far has always been spontaneous and inspired by the images on hand, I can't wait to see what Wednesday evening holds.

PS. The first person to say 'scrap-booking' gets a kick in the ass.

minifig fun (in lieu of pirate)

My youngest would like a Mermaid birthday party. But as 80% of her guest list are boys we decided to make it Mermaids & Pirates so as not to alienate them ... I've heard rumours that boys aged 4+ are easily alienated by 'girlie' things.
Lordy, this gender divide thing is some serious crap.

I'm waiting for NYC to wake up for a teleconference, and to be honest suffering a small case of nerves in anticipation of the phone call, so this seemed as good a way as any to distract myself ...

Let's see if it gets the seal of approval.

[UPDATE: she loves it! Shew.]

a month of me

I returned one crutch to the pharmacy today. I still need one for room-to-room walking, but I can hobble around the kitchen on two feet, preparing a simple meal or in today's case, baking a birthday cake for my mother-in-law.

It's astounding how liberating it feels to have the use of my hands, easily, and to have one hand now free to carry stuff around.
To take be able to take photographs.

I wrote about my wheelchair experience, but this whole month of disability has been rare and exceptional.

I was crushed that my year started on this foot (ha ha), but in hindsight (isn't it always?), it's been a gift.

Could the cry of that Fish Eagle that enticed me out on to the lawn (and I must write about my Fish Eagle thing soon), have been another instance of one telling me that this was good, that this was right?

For one month I've not been required to be anything much for anyone else. I've naturally done what I can for the girls - I've had them home every weekday afternoon, I'd throw together sandwiches, read stories etc - but there were vast tracts of their care that I couldn't do - bath, bedtime upstairs, endlessly searching for assorted crap, driving them around - and so, I couldn't.
I spent a lot of time just being me.

What a gift right?

I've had moments I haven't had since before being a parent.

I've sat on the stoop and watched evening fall like the lightest gossamer veil over the earth, the most beautiful guise of summer.
I've lain in deep baths and had long rememberings - childhood holidays, the houses of friends I had growing up, moments in our early relationship (20+ years ago!).
I've spent so much time with my cat.
I've been silent for hours.
I've hung out. With me.

There have been many less desirable moments. I've been in pain obviously - but besides the physical, I've had restless days. 'Pacing my cage' as an insightful friend put it. I've felt isolated and redundant, sorry for myself.
I've been working (and thank god I work from home) and I've been utilising social media big time, so it's not like I've been a total hermit. But I miss people.

And I've some bad habits to break. Wearing sweatpants for one. Very long morning coffee breaks outside. Twitter. Netflix.

But this evening, as I prepared supper for the girls, topped up their juice bottles, I felt such satisfaction in these mundane domestic tasks. Was it because I was caring for my family, I asked myself?
No, it was because I wasn't having to ask my poor husband to do it.

I'm grateful. For this time I've had. For my wonderful mother and husband who've picked up the reins so open-heartedly. For my daughters who've shown compassion and patience with my 'silly foot' every day of the last month.
For the beauty of my cage.
For this month of me.

where I sat

It was hot this weekend.
I pegged my way out on to the lawn to sit in the cool breeze under our Norfolk pine.
I sat there for a while and then pegged all the way back in to get my camera.

I've been so frustrated at not being able to take pictures. It's hard to get good angles when you can only lean on one leg, need both hands for moving. Can't jump up to grab the camera when the urge strikes or the moment's right.
So it was fun to focus on what was right around me, available with just the slightest of contortions. Textures and shadows, there'll be more of them in 2014.

melting moments

It was yesterday morning, on discovering an unsightly patch of eczema on my arm, clearly caused by my crutches, that I had a bit of a meltdown.
I didn't cry, but I kind of wailed, pathetically.
I mean, really?

I needed to bake. I've been so restrained since Christmas, and have in fact lost weight since turning my ankle. (I call it the Inertia Diet - so far it's working for me.)
But therapeutic baking was required so I whipped up some biscuits for tea.

Within minutes the smells of lemon, butter and vanilla soothed and comforted me. The pulse of the mixer, the twanging of the oven shelves as they warmed up, the expletives as the piping bag I was using split, the hilarity at watching husband continue regardless, pushing the biscuit dough through the piping knozzle with his thumb ... the baking zone is a happy place.

And then tea on the stoop, the stoop which knows me so very well at the moment, tea and homemade biscuits with my loved ones on the stoop.

It's handy to be a homebody when you're stuck spending a lot of time at home.

all the other molly's

Last year I got offered a job in New York. The offer was only partly made in jest, there was definitely room to continue the conversation if I was keen.
Which I was, but realistically, I couldn't.

It was not a job I could've done with a family, with two young children, even if I had been able to persuade them all to pick up roots and move across the world.

It was a poignant moment, one of those junctures in which one is forced to examine the choices you've made, the life you've built. It was a moment in which I looked through the time/space continuum and nodded at a different version of myself, a different life Molly.
'Off you go', I said to her, 'go live and work in that city you've always dreamed of, go have adventures, send me a postcard.'
She looked at me and smiled, and got on the plane.

A few weeks later I found myself back on a beach where I'd spent much of my adventurous youth.
One of the girls needed to pee and in the beach loo's, while doling out instructions on remembering to wipe and washing hands and don't touch that, I looked up at the old speckled mirror and caught a glimpse of my 17 year old self there.
She was checking her hair, examining her peeling shoulders, rearranging her bikini and wondering whether that dark-haired wave-skier had noticed her ...
Her eyes caught mine and we briefly acknowledged each other.
Hello mother-type person. Hello different life Molly.

These last few weeks of enforced stasis I've been communing with another previous version of myself. I've been hanging out with the pre-kids Molly. The Molly who has time to sit and think, who moves much slower through the world, who takes long baths and watches TV without feeling guilty that she should be doing something else, for someone else. The Molly who looks after herself.
I wish I could say this time has been productive, that I've been writing and planning and using my time wisely. But you know that parenting thing of always wishing you had more time? Now I have it I don't really know what to do with it, and instead I find myself doing nothing.
But one thing I've always known is that doing nothing is not a bad thing. That, as someone once said, 'time wasted is not a waste if you've enjoyed the wasting of it'. Does that make sense?
Doing nothing is a complete and utter luxury. And for whatever reason, that luxury has been bestowed on me at a time, in the madness of this parenting life, when I can appreciate it enormously.
Far more than pre-kids Molly ever did!

I do wish however I could parcel this time and share it though. My husband could definitely use some, most of my friends wouldn't say no, I wouldn't mind being able to store some away for future months when I'm back on my feet and the madness returns.

But for now Cripple Molly is at peace. I don't really have a choice, do I?

ho hum ... grateful ...

I don't make resolutions - 'cos they're naff - but two things I'd like to do more of this year is take random pictures of shadows and textures and such, and send interesting packages to interesting places.
All of you who live in interesting places take heed.

My sister-in-law is the care package queen and I find it highly enviable. Also, I have latent guilt from friends and family living abroad for many years and receiving very little actual post from me.
I'm starting with a sick boy I know of far away ... let's see how well I pull this off.

Two weeks tomorrow, still on crutches. Photos taken: 0 (besides the obligatory first day of school snaps). Care packages sent: 0. Getting off to a good start ...

But, I am grateful for ...

~ rediscovering the joy of a bath, in my able-bodied life I'd shunned baths in favour of the more efficient seeming shower
~ netflix - because when you really need to kill time, there's no better way
~ my smartphone and how it has entertained me when the effort of fetching my book from the next room is not worth the pain, or awkward under-the-arm-tenuous-crutch-grip-slash-risk-of-another-injury
~ the kilo's shed (or more truthfully, not gained) as I'm unable to snack indiscriminately (see: reasons above)
~ that I work from home!

But mostly of course I am consumed with gratitude to my husband, my mum, my fabulous kids, extended family and friends - for assisting and supporting and sympathising.

It's only a sprain, a few weeks on crutches is, as my father would say, but nothing against the limitless span of eternity, but it's been interesting. More thoughts on that soon.

inertia

I'm not going to lie, spending three days sitting on my exquisitely-positioned stoop, stoned on painkillers, having conversations with nearests and dearests, my kids largely being taken care of by themselves and others, has definitely had its moments.

When I first posted about the sprain on FB, a friend with a 3 yo and 2 yo TRIPLETs retorted: Lucky you!
I can't fault her envy.

There's something undeniable about crutches. Unlike a cold, or a tummy bug, or just plain slackness, no one can really doubt your inability to do certain things (like carrying a mug of hot tea), and after spending the first 24h after the sprain fighting rising panic, I've found a place of calm acceptance.

This is not unlike being pregnant. My body is doing something which has meant I've had to change my modus operandi, have had to embrace assistance, have had to surrender to the now and patiently wait it out.

I've had more down time in the last 3 days than the whole of the long summer holiday - this cannot be all bad right?

It's just ... not how I'd planned to start my year. 2014 was to be about speed. Doing more work, getting my motorbike licence, moving a little faster now that my kids no longer hold as tightly to my apron strings.

But no, seems it is to start with a period of very slow contemplation. Right. Back to the stoop.