I have been thinking about the title “Starting again ,or New life “and there are a few questions about that very notion .There is no such ambiguity about babies At the moment of birth a baby just IS.It is only later that he or she may be endowed with the doubts and worries,expectations and beliefs of our own existence
Hello Baby
I saw you this morning on the screen
Right arm flailing about your head
Tadpole body wriggling in space
I couldn’t see your face
Baby -Hello .
Uninvited,unheralded,unplanned,unplaced
Not mine;
Yet the force of your existence casts a skein over my life
Is already changing my direction
Already changing my perception
Altering my reality
Forcing me to question.
You’re coming into all our lives
But let’s not make you the arbitrator of meaning
Lets celebrate your existence
Not hang our lives on it and wear you down
With the weight of our longings.
I love you.
I’ll beat a drum for you
I’ll weave a dance for you
Sing a song for you
Until you sing your own.
Sometimes I think it’s like spending all day cleaning, putting stuff away, rearranging, deleting. Culling. Then start again in a few days, hours, weeks
Each time at the supposed final putting away there’s a sense of relief. Breathing in uncluttered spaces and the way ahead is beckoning . ” All clear”
Foolish thought. Only momentarily clear . But hold onto that and start again with hope
I picked it up yesterday:the flowered teapot,part of a set of blue cornflower cups and saucers and cooking ware and plates .Once a full set ,brought out on special days like birthdays and feast days and of course Christmas .The tea set has suffered the most from breakages and there is only the teapot and one cup and saucer surviving.
How old ? Must be at least 75 by my calculations -given to my mother I suppose as part of her trousseau when she married.The set ( a full quota of plates and a few serving dishes still remain) has journeyed between Tanzania,England and South Africa and finally came to rest in South Fremantle.
The tea has stained the inside rim of the pot ,and all around the top .Inside its hard to remove the tannin .How many pots of tea have been made in how many dining rooms and kitchens ? I remember mum’s formula:”warm the pot ,put in 3 spoons tea, and one for the pot ,pour in the boiling water,leave for 2 minutes before pouring.”So many times she corrected me when I made a cuppa ,or pulled a face as she sipped a cup I made incorrectly.
I think of my mother as I make this pot of tea .All the good things now -the tea parties and sandwiches and cakes ,the well made cups of tea ,not slopped together like mine .The enjoyment of having people around drinking the tea and talking ,the insistence of tables laid correctly on the starched and ironed white tablecloth.Side plates and cake forks ,and the teacups beside in their matching saucers.Small jug of milk and the sugar bowl. Carefully cut sandwiches arranged tidily on pretty glass platters and small, delicate iced cakes ,perfectly risen, resting there enticingly. Guests seated .The piece de resistance, the teapot ,brought to the table and my mother pours.
A beautiful teapot ,pretty and soft, shaped for an easy hold and created to withstand all the moves and rough handling.A survivor .Perhaps a bit of a picture of a life aspired to ,a life of genteelness and politeness ,but also of being hospitable and kind to others.I’ve brought that teapot out from storage.
This teapot is also a song to a life of holding ones own,holding together no matter what.Regardless of changing circumstances. This,asserts my mother, is my life :A rounded white teapot with tiny blue cornflowers .Vale Mum
This was written some time ago . Reflects a moment/ moments in time early corona virus time in WA. Found it languishing in blog and waiting to be cut. Am putting it out as is warts and all as I think it’s honest if wordy, and makes some still salient points 4 months after the crisis here in WA seems to have dissipated
In my newly assumed mode of sending off blogs directly ,minimum agonising and minimum fiddling with edit.Hopefully we wont be,like Shakespeares ancient, sans everything at the end of this period of isolation and social distancing.Hopefully we will not be sans conscience again .But I’m not naive enough to think that the world will become a spiritually and ethically transformed place.We are human after all.I cannot write on behalf of the universe.I can only write much closer to home.In fact at home.I want to document some of the circumstantial and purposeful changes made within my part of the household from about the middle of March 2020.
AND THIS IS ME COOKING PUMPKIN SOUP
Cooking .Although I was cooking before ,now there is no possibility of going out ,especially to our weekly whole family catch up at the Fremantle Markets .I distrust take away ,so cooking more and more ,and tackling new recipes as it gets boring doing the same old healthy ,vego food .In fact it is getting boring cooking each night anyway .My fervour for cooking a while ago when I was focussed on growing food,eating unprocessed ,exercising regularly and exploring different types of exercise is languishig .I suspect because the crisis of illness and treatment has passed .With the wider threat of CV I can as all humans do I relax into old habits.Also it’s winter and my appetite is returning but not my sense of taste,so sugar and high carbs are great.
They say one is nearer to God in a garden
Gardening .At the end of the summer I had decided to pull most of stuff remaining out.The tomatoes especially had not justified the money, time and effort spent on keeping them going and the few small unappealing fruits on the drying branches did not warrant anymore attention.But I have had to try again,attempting to recapture the old magic of anticipating the first shoot or leaf to pop up.The first part is the best.Rather like pets.Sweet when little and then they become a burden as well;pets have to be fed and walked and taken to the vet.They cost money and time.As do vegie gardens
Efficient food shopping: Efficient but limited. Using a standard supermarket as in the early morning there are few people and it is safer.But vegies from supermarket are not very satisfying.The texture and taste contributes to my diminished interest in preparing food.Also of course in this time of social distancing there are no longer friends to cook for.There are none of those family dinners where we pooled scrumptious recipes and sat around talking and drinking while the kids did cartwheels and wrote stories or drew.Those evenings with their fun and closeness have exited stage right as the CV has entered centre stage.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
Find another supplier and stop winging .
Lets look on the Bright side: Nevertheless I’m not spending time going to various places for vegies,or meandering my way through Op shops(Op shops deserve a blog all of their own ).We are saving about $50 a week not doing the morning walk up to our local cafe for coffee and muffin.Take away coffee ? Well its Ok occasionally when one just has to grasp some semblance of the old ways ,and needs to talk to someone other than oneself and husband .But its not the same ,we all know, as sitting down at a table in the sun, grabbing the paper of someone to flick through and then watching the passing walkers and cyclists ,and even the cars on the highway.I’m not wasting time though,no lengthy sit at coffee or extended walk.Now its coffee at home in the newly arranged back garden:paving swept,pond improvised, flowers ,some veggies
WOW I HADNT REALISED HOW GREAT THE GARDEN LOOKED A FEW MONTHS AGO -THE SUMMER
All the paraphenalia surrounding Thompson lives removed until it finds its way back.Like the shovels and remnants of washing that has blown off the line, rotting cuttings sitting in jars of black liquid ,bits of paper that have missed the bins .There are various things to be thrown out (only now there is no Resource Center) : malfunctioning goods, broken furniture ,old mattresses .So they have had to join their mates in the rapidly filling back room.
PS also my store room -all this healthy eating requires tins of chic peas and tomatoes ,lots of beans and lentils , assorted flours ,brown rice -Im sure you know -and there is no room for lots of loo paper or sanitiser!!
Transportation and Communication
Yes its a pleasure to walk across the highway now and not have to dodge cars on my way to the beach .Can we discover that we can do without cars ,or at least that we dont have to drive everywhere ,And we dont have to have a car for each member of the household
I see a lot more people walking just in my neighbourhood, and certainly more people are stopping to talk .There are people sitting on their walls with a drink in their hands ,all socially distancing but chatting with a neighbour on a wall across from them People are a lot more eager to talk, especially women .There are small groups of children playing games outside on ovals or lawns supervised by parents and mostly moving apart .Families are looking for way s of getting their children outside and away from technology for part of the day .
All this is good.I hate to qualify with another statement -but Fremantle and its surrounds is not a typical suburb:it is predominately middle class with a mix of older people and younger families and laid back ,alternative lifestyles Many of us walk and cycle anyway and are involved with the community.We are so lucky with our surrounds -beach and river and parks .We do not live cheek by jowl in a small one bedroom apartment in a crowded city trying to survive on little money ,and unable to get out .
To Conclude :
Perhaps the biggest change these last few months has been communication
The community I live in has changed for the better in that people are moving around and relating more closely to neighbours.For me personally the social distancing and isolation has had a flip side .There have been positive changes :the focus on life here at home ,getting jobs done ,more writing and reading ,less restless moving around and more targeted activity ,a greater reliance on figuring stuff out on my own .looking at my thoughts instead of moving on to be distracted.
The flip side is that the relating via technology or at best via 1.5 m apart is an emotional separation.The more I don’t speak face to,face,laugh,argue ,touch or hold the wider the gap.This is especially true with grandchildren.
Perhaps the thing I miss most in CV time is the hugging .
So I have my teeth ,my eyes are extra sharp at the moment ,and I and many of us here have if not everything ,much more than a lot of the rest of the world Lets be thankful.Let me be thankful .Maybe I can learn to think emotion into those air hugs .
Sambasue21 