13

A week ago we became parents of a teen.

That tiny little Frieda, who first appeared on this blog here, turned 13 on 20/06/20.

Never did we think her birthday would still be in lockdown, and such an auspicious birthday at that. And, as she mournfully pointed out, on a Saturday - perfect for a 13th birthday party in the 'old life'.
But, with all the resilience, calm and sense of humour she brings to every other aspect of her life, she didn't complain, and more importantly - didn't let it mar her big day.

Her toned down birthday wishes in lieu of a party included a socially-distanced walk with her bestie, a picnic on the beach and sushi for dinner.
She's been missing her pal so much, as had we all. Frieda and Amara have been friends since birth and Amara's been at our house at least once a week for the last 7 years.

Their contact the last few months has been limited to (sometimes all day) FaceTime sessions and fleeting glimpses at school (they're back, their grade has been back since 1 June, but in small allocated groups which they don't stray out of), and Frieda was wildly excited to spend a morning in her actual presence.

But we took it one step further - her family and ours have both been very locked down, and with them back at school we're all exposed to similar risks there - so we agreed with her parents that Amara would come for a surprise sleep-over, and thereby elevate a somewhat subdued birthday to new heights of epic-ness.

We set off for the walk as planned, met Amara and one other friend at the beach. It was beautiful crisp winter's day - they had their own picnic while we gave them space and hang out with lovely Kalk Bay's stone cairn sculptures, and then we said we'd give Amara a lift home.
But en route we deviated, headed back in our direction, and all laughed like loons as the penny dropped in the back seat and the girls squealed with glee.

Not the 13th birthday she'd planned, but turns out, the one she needed.

black lives matter

A friend of ours put this up at the popular Muizenberg beachfront just before dawn on Saturday, just before it got light enough for the security cameras.

Because even making a statement about equality for all races is a risky act these days.

Later that day I posted this picture to the Muizenberg Notice Board FB page (I don't think I need to tell you what a fraught place of radical division that is right?) and received the exact response I anticipated.

2 minutes later ...

'But ALL lives matter'

Le sigh.

In just under 2h the admin closed comments on the post because of the inevitable brawling taking place. No one was directly contesting the initial sentiment, but so many Whataboutists - 'what about gender violence?, 'what about slave labour in Libya', 'what about Covid' - and my personal favourite: 'Is the beach really the correct forum to vent these views?'

I say old chap, fuck yeah it is.

That said, 5 days later the post is still getting likes (only 9 angry faces!), and the banner is still up. 

The conversation is ongoing, and that is what is important.

Black lives matter, and if you want it in (a highly amusing) nutshell - watch this.

lock down (birthday edition)

Day 60, officially. Plus 11 for our household.

Totally laughable now that we thought we'd be done in 21 days. And what did we think 'done' looked like anyway?

Looking back, it's gone by quite quickly. As with raising small children, the hours drag but the days fly.
We've done all the same things everyone else in the world has done - vacillated between comfort and despair at pretty regular intervals.

Currently we've hit a bit of ennui...
Our 'lockdown diary', started with enthusiasm, is kicking around under piles of home-school materials and half-finished art projects. The school work we do is the barest minimum. We get out to take advantage of our 'exercise slot' (6 to 9am) at best three times a week. The kitchen is kept tidy, the bathrooms seen to once a week and high-traffic areas swept (and sometimes mopped) fairly regularly, but everything else is a bit murky and dusty.

There are a lot of screens in rotation, and there's been a LOT of the accompanying parental guilt about this. But a few things happened last week which changed my mindset about this a bit.
I had a chat with my sister-in-law in which she reminded me that my kids are not smallies any longer, and as the first generation to have access to this much online content who can really say at this point what the long-term effects will be? The convo got me thinking about my brother, a die-hard gamer and tech enthusiast, who is also possibly the brightest person I know.
Then this lovely poem by Hollie McNish.
And finally a rollercoaster ride, built entirely in Minecraft by my 10 yr old daughter, specially for me as a birthday present last week.
Encompassing an underground tunnel, a section through a glass-walled aquarium filled with fish and colourful plants, an LGBTIQ+ rainbow-walled section, the world's highest rollercoaster hill and a field of llamas I have to say it was one of the best experiences I've ever been gifted. It took her best part of two days and was all self-conceptualised.
The kids are alright.

And yes, it was my birthday. Lockdown birthday club whoop whoop.

Leading up to it I was apprehensive, thinking that maybe the reason we have birthday celebrations is to distract ourselves from the march of time, to literally sing and dance in the face of aging-related existential dread.
Nothing like reaching proper middle age in time of global pandemic to bring out all the anxieties.

But there was also a freedom in not being able to do anything special. No need to clean and polish the house for guests, no juggle to find an activity which suits all ages, schedules and budgets. No expectation of looking ones best or being goddamn cheerful.

And, as always with birthdays - lucky me - it was lovely. Turns out the essential elements - love, cake, friends - were still there, albeit very differently to in the past.
Love shown in small gestures and large, cake baked by me (red velvet) and more delivered by friends (chocolate, lemon drizzle, super decadent choc fudge biscuits - 'We have a cake BUFFET' my daughter declared the next day), friends who spontaneously arrived for a very socially-distanced glass of wine in our front driveway, perched on small fold-out chairs in the gathering gloom... giggles and commiserations.
Fortyfuckin'five is not too old to be reminded that we endure beyond viruses and screens and parental guilt and dusty floors.
Life it seems, carries on.

lock down

Today is Day One of lock down. Currently expected to last for 21 days.
We'll see.

I've stocked the house, filled the prescriptions, bought the basic meds we'll need should anyone get sick.
I've helped my parents get ready, made sure the people who work for us are safe and provided for, checked in with friends and family - especially those living alone.
I've donated to various organisations helping those in need through this time.
I've gone through the roller-coaster of all the emotions and fears, I've acknowledged my grief and rallied my energies.

I woke up this morning and felt ... relief. Anyone else feeling that I wonder.

There's nothing more I can do except stay at home. This is what I can do now to help. I'm so grateful not to have to go out anymore.

The logistics of leaving, being out there, returning - the sanitising and taking care and physical distancing and contamination containment was genuinely starting to make me feel loopy.
But worse, the people I saw every time who were not taking the same precautions, not taking this seriously, not taking care - that was driving my anxiety through the roof.

'You're all going to die' I'd think watching people huddle together to watch something on a phone, share a can of soda, eat with their hands, pick at their teeth, spit in the street. 'You're all going to die and you're going to take someone I love with you'.
Anxiety is not rational, but anxiety is real, and I've had enough brushes with proper anxiety attacks in my life to know I was skirting dangerous territory.

But now we're home. And we're not allowed to leave. As an adult I am so grateful for other grown-ups telling us what to do right now. And so immensely grateful for everyone out there doing what they're doing so that we can stay right here.

The weirdest thing about this virus is this - it causes one immense fear and concern, and then puts one in the place (if you're lucky) where you're most well-equipped to deal with this.
In our home, with our pets, our loved ones, our comforts.

Where this goes no one knows, but for now I feel more relaxed than I have in weeks, and I'm going to cling to that for a while.
Until the milk runs out at least.

this time of year

Ironic to follow up the last post with this one, but they don't contradict each other - it's all just life.

It took me by surprise last year, although I should really have been more attune to it then, and this year again it took me a while to work it out. What is it about this time of year that niggles me, brings feelings of helplessness, of quiet sadness even in happy times?

There's something in the air, in the heat, in the bright light, something dark and heavy.

It was this time of year I was walking the last stretch of the road with Zahida. Those last few weeks of desperation, crippling exhaustion and sorrow. The sunny days seemed a mockery, the new year optimism like a kick in the balls. Starting the new year, new projects, felt disloyal and cruel. She would always ask, always ask about me, right up to the end, and genuinely seemed to want to know what was going on, despite how incredibly painful it must've been to hear.

The last time I saw her at home it was a really warm day. She was so lively, almost unable to sit still despite the air tube linked over her ears and in to her nose, she couldn't go longer than a few minutes without it. Her eyes, large in her thin face, were bright as sparks. She was full of plans, getting me to help her work out the hanging arrangement for a bunch of her children's art she wanted to get framed, hoping to get to the beach that afternoon.

I knew from the reading that I'd done that this was known end of life behaviour, despite seeming so full of life it was in fact leaving her fast.

Later that morning she tired, but insisted that I stay and sit with her as she lay down in her bedroom - air con unit and feather duvet on, she was no longer able to regulate her body temperature. We cried and chatted and sat in silence as she seemed to drift in and out of sleep. She had one last wish she quietly whispered, she wanted to die at home, she wanted to die in her room. 

For a long time she had despaired that her children would remember her as weak and sick, she hadn't wanted that, but now resigned that that was to be the case she really hoped to die not as a patient in a hospital, hooked up to machines, but in their home, as if to cement herself to the end in their family.

10 days later she was gone. In hospital, after a traumatic few days of goodbyes, and then more goodbyes and false lasts and and utter exhaustion and just a handful of distressing visits with her kids. Part of my initial grief was knowing how badly she'd wanted that to be different.

*********************************************************************************

Zahida and I were members of the same book club. She introduced me to it, I was the 9th member, and for over a decade we met once a month at each others houses for dinner and books and so many laughs.

FOUR members of that group were diagnosed with cancer over the years. Stats which left us reeling.

Zahida's was the quickest, the most brutal, and last week I got the sad news that after years of fighting Lee-Ann had succumbed too.

Lee-Ann's was quick. She was seemingly doing okay, recently away on holiday with her teenage daughter. Hospitalised last week with a stomach infection, she deteriorated in a matter of days and on Thursday was sent home, nothing more to be done. She passed away in the night, in her bed, her mother, sister and daughter by her side.

I'd not seen Lee-Ann for a while (I gave up book club after Zahida died, it was the one thing too painful to keep on doing without her), and we were never particularly close, but naturally it came as a huge shock.

And through my sadness for her, and for her poor girl, I felt so sad again for my dearest friend -  and angered anew at all she'd suffered and how to the last that bastard disease wouldn't even grant her such a simple, so heartfelt request, to have her children remember her as vital and functional, to die in peace at home.

Fuck cancer.

This time of year it all comes back, the last few days it came back hard.

rolling into it

I really like the sound of 2020.

The beautiful symmetry of the number, the sound of it off the tongue - gives me a jolt of optimism every time I think of it. I think it's going to be a good one, a redemptive and light one.
Rolling into it with hope.

There's a liberty in having no plans. Obviously there are plans, but I have as yet no hard dates this year, no deadlines.

There are currently only two goals.

Embark on the massive renovation we've been planning for years and fine-tuning for the last couple of months... and ... consciously relish this year with our girls.

I realised over the holidays that the girls will be 13 and 10 over the next few months.
It's Frieda's last year before she moves to high school, Stella's last year on the junior campus of their school after which she moves up to the senior campus (new teachers, new rules, new routines) in 2021. For these reasons and more this year feels like a pause in the known, a moment to breathe a bit deeper and move a bit slower together.
Rolling into it with enthusiasm.

Live. Love. Laugh.
Saccharine cliche on a kitchen wall, real 2020 goals in my heart.

update on the 'sabbatical'

What have I been up to?

Well, not blogging clearly. Dammit.

But lots of actual things in the world with real people, which is good right?

I've spent some time with my little nephews. At nearly 1 and nearly 3 they are both just delicious, the older one chatty and funny and busy - the baby still baby enough to have a good cuddle. These are probably 'my' last babies until grandchildren and it's been wonderful to have this time with them.

I've been working out - 4 times a week at least, sometimes even getting up before 7 on a Saturday for an extra class (this is totally unheard of for me). 

I've made some progress on clutter and sorting out my home office and bagging stuff up for donation etc, but not as much as I thought I would.
Ditto personal admin. I've not been great on that. Turns out it's still as utterly boring as ever, I just don't have the same excuses about not getting round to it. I've done some good work on generating more though - namely reversing into my friend's car outside our own house a few weeks back! Ack.
Ditto website updates, inbox clearing and filing - I've spent very little time on all that rubbish.
Because really, do I want to spend any time on my laptop when I don't have to? Fek no.
(See also, reasons I've not been blogging.)

I've done some quality appreciation of this beautiful place I live though.

A cycle tour through the City on a magnificent blue and gold day. From the touristy bustle of the waterfront, up Adderley street in the heart of the city, along pee- and dagga- smelling pavements outside the Station, past City Hall (where 1 year ago I was in the THICK of a massive project), through the serene Company Gardens, up cobble-stoned streets into the Bo Kaap and then down through Green Point and back to the sea.
This city will never, ever lose its allure.

Then the first leg of a summer project to swim in all (25?) tidal pools the Cape Peninsula has to offer. We managed 4 on a very blustery and overcast day, with plans to conquer the rest before the summer is out.

St James tidal pool, pictured on a very different day!

I've been a really great friend.
I've lifted kids and baked birthday cakes and helped arrange parties and run errands and delivered wine and covered bills and been (very freely) available for drinks and hang outs.
This all sounds fairly smug, but I don't believe in altruism and will happily admit I've gained so much from all this. Not self-satisfaction, but genuine happiness in being of service to those I love.

My people have been so solidly there for me the last few tumultuous years, all while going through some pretty horrible stuff themselves. We're all juggling so many balls, all feeling like we're dropping most. It has been such a gift to have the time and resources to help catch some, to do small things to help, to do big things to share.
How lucky to have beloved people in your life to do things for?

I've fostered an appreciation for the small things. How a weekend can be a weekend when you're not spending it catching up on everything you've not been able to do during the week. How dinner prep can be so much more satisfying when you're not slamming it together too late and too distracted to do it properly. How chats on the couch with my girls can wander on uninterrupted into all kinds of topics when nothing else is calling me away.

It's been so lovely to be here for them, my sweet girls. It's been so lovely to be able to give them the best of myself. Well, most of the time.

And finally, excitingly, some real progress on our planned home renovation! We have an architect. We have plans. We have moments of utter weakness at the challenges of packing this place up and subjecting ourselves to dust and builders and massive logistical challenges. But we have progress, and 2020 is set to be the year of the house.

Exciting times.

hallow queen

For someone who has often claimed not to be a big fan of Halloween ... we've had some good ones!

I've been pretty grinchy about it tbh ....

... and then I've taken it all back.

I've hosted, and learned to love it.

And even when I've not managed to blog about it, it's still happened.

I might even be able to call myself a bit of a Hallow Queen by now...?

first rule of CrossFit*

 

I thought this was funny before I started CrossFit. Now it's hilarious.

I have two friends who've been at it for about a year. About the same amount of time my ankle was either incapacitating me in pain, or recovering from the surgery intended to heal it.

When I was laid up in my recovery room (or 'on my nice holiday' as the same two friends like to call it), they would come and hang out and 'entertain me' by flexing their muscles and talking about the WOD and so-and-so at the gym and how much they could snatch and a bunch of other incomprehensible things. 

I was so not interested.

Part of it was my disbelief at how useless I was, had been for a long time, when it came to exercise and getting in shape.

My ankle had been a factor, a large one, but to be honest I stopped exercising a long time before that. I was just really not into breaking a sweat, or feeling uncomfortable.

Part of my boredom was envy - they were looking great and their passion for it was palatable.

Shame and envy, not a good combo for the existential dread.

Some months after I was walking again, the end of July to be exact, I felt a shift. I was feeling so out of shape and suddenly filled with the need to MOVE, to flex and stretch and test my new foot and DO SOMETHING already. 

But I was still in a lot of pain, and really apprehensive about what I could do and how radically unfit I felt.

One afternoon on the side of the hockey field I spoke to a school mum friend, we were talking about swimming, yoga - low impact ways I could get back into exercise. Then I came home to cook supper for one of my now lean and ripped friends ... two bottles of wine later and I'd committed to going to a CrossFit class with her the next morning.

The existentials were nothing on the dread I felt waking up that morning, hungover and scared.

I dressed with major anxiety and drove myself there deciding to just not think about it, and ready to HATE everybody and everything.

I did hate everybody, and I really nearly cried, but it turns out I wasn't as unfit as I thought I was, and my ankle handled fine.

I woke that night, and tried to get up for some reason. I couldn't move.

I carefully lowered myself back into bed, flinching in pain, and then I smiled. This felt good.

Boy, I drank the Kool Aid fast after that.

Obvs I had to start with new sneakers ... and then I was away.

It's been 3 months. My ankle pain has reduced by about 85%. I feel great. I need to workout. I'm firming, I'm losing some weight. I like to sweat. I'm getting fit.

So yeah, now I am a CrossFitter. Good lord this is a weird old life.

*always talk about CrossFit

sabbatical?

You think I'm referring to my long absence here hey?
Let's just not mention that and move on...

It seems I am finished work for the year.
I know right?
But it seems that I am.

This week I'm wrapping up my last contract for the year, with nary a sign in sight of more work and not one project lapping at my heels. This is a first in nearly 8 years and amazingly, I'm so okay with it.
I feel like I've reached the end of a piece of string, only to find it led to quite a nice place.

The last two years have been particularly full on work-wise. Everything-wise actually.
Months and weeks have run into each other in a blur of clients and events and kids and school and house and friends and pets and horrible tragedy and travel and family and wild fun and late nights and achingly boring adulting and mind-numbing stress and worry and tears and hysterical laughter and boundless joy and ... jeez, I'm tired.

But a moment has appeared, a break in the clouds - maybe the eye of the storm - in which this one enormous aspect of my life has stilled, and I feel a pause. It's deeply energising.

Can I call it a sabbatical? I asked a friend-colleague.
Sure, she said, but the thing with a sabbatical is you need to do something special with it - study, write, travel - set yourself a big goal you'd never have time or resources to achieve when you're working.

Hmmm...

How bout a sabbatical in which the goal is to be a more present parent. To support my big girl through end of year exams, my little through her current existential crises about getting older. How bout I be a more patient partner, a more engaged home-maker, a less haphazard Christmas gift-shopper, a more attentive daughter/aunt/friend.
How bout a sabbatical where I have more time to do the things which spark joy - work out more, organise my home office/studio, clear out the trenches of a big house and family, beautify my space, write my blog and frankly all of the things in the paragraph above.
How bout I find the time and head-space to create again - to make things with my hands which still and lighten my heart.
I feel like these are big goals of mine, special things to be able to do, things I don't have the time and resources to achieve when I'm working.
I feel like these are enough.

And as if the universe heard me, this week has been an onslaught of school plays and associated lifting and snack-bearing, of bake sale and school oral prep and personal admin and an afternoon lost to chasing a snake around our garden and trying to arrange its capture (and it's only Wednesday!).

But because this is all I've been doing, all I've been having to do - because there's been no additional email tyranny and meeting plans and calls with clients and deadlines and necessity to focus elsewhere - I've been flowing with it.
It feels like this is more than enough.

I know Murphy is probably listening and some huge and un-refusable job could be lurking around the corner, that would be okay too, but I'm hoping that the wolves remain at bay for a little longer. I'm hoping to have more time to just do this.
I love my work-work, but I love my life-work more, and I'd really like to spend a sabbatical building on that.