Friend-fairies who bring light

Brought together by the promise of new life

Laughing and living and being a wife

First together and then separated by miles

Yet our friendship continues with smiles

We talk, we cry, we hope, we sigh

We know we can always on hope rely

And when the way seems dark and scary

I know I have one sweet "friend-fairy"

Who brings counsel, hugs and light

Because together we lean on our Saviour's might!

For the special ladies I love so much!

Not counting

 The weeks have been flying by. The swallows are back when I thought they had just left. As I sit and type I am thinking about counting the days, and then choosing not to count. There is no "new normal". There is just today and all that it holds. I can give thanks for yesterday, be present in this day, and while I plan for tomorrow (exams, parents arrive, lunch, surgeons, supper, school lunchboxes and clients all mixed together), it's happening, well, tomorrow.

And time flies by and the wheel continues turning

While children play and parents are earning

And flowers rise, bloom and fall

While winter changes to spring and the turtledoves call

It seems youth is fading but colours are still bright

There's fog in the air and a half moon in the night

And stink. One of the tomorrow decisions was made today and I need to find a way through. Without tromping on people, putting others at risk, and finally facing up to my own heart. 

Psalm 93 says "You yourself are from the everlasting past". The prayer from Lectio today is particularly apt. "Jesus, I yield my bruised and battered heart to You - the darkness of my understanding..."

For my wild dancing singing laughing wild-like-da-Turkey friend

Hey Sharon, it’s your birthday, you very cool girl

It’s time to dance and have a bit of whirl

I was asked what I appreciate ‘bout you ...

So here’s my list! Pay attention – woohoo!

You’re simply my friend who is cooler than cool

You survived dinosaurs and covid, and the social distancing rule

You can do coffee and bagels at the drop of a hat

While stopping 3 girls and a twitcher from going bang-splat.

In hospital (or out) we can always laugh

Even when crazy music makes us want to …

When days are hard and when days are good

You’re the mate I need and want in my hood!

For deep things and God things and kid things and more

My prayer is that this year you’ll soar and you’ll soar

Love you my friend, under every crazy hat

You’re so cool, and that is just that!

Day 213 - Counting costs

Today I was asked to send a quick report of what the impact of COVID-19 in South Africa has been. So I summed up what I had seen, and then started writing down some of the stories I know. 

Then I deleted them. I don't want to wallow in the sadness. I want to rather give thanks for the glimmers of light and shine hope wherever I can.

• S made it out of her house last weekend for the first time - hooray!
• J has found herself in a new class at school and I am so thrilled. She might not like her class mates but she loves her teacher and is flying!
• B got retrenched from a job which was chewing him up and is now working with a mate. He's so much happier and motivated now.
• I've had more time with my hubby as we are both working from home.
• Kids start hockey tomorrow and can't wait.
• All of our domestic helpers clients were able to continue paying her throughout lockdown.

Glimmers of light. Rainbows. May they spread. 

Day 174+19 - Canonised

Somewhere between a pork chop and dessert during lunch at her retirement home, Granny Joyce zoomed out of her body and into eternity. Nearly 98 years old. Kind, firm, totally with it. Fully present in her body to the last exhale and then immediately present with her Lord. This is zooming at its ABSOLUTE best! 

Breathe out here, breathe in there. 

Reminded of eternity just beyond our vision. Of hope found just that other side of despair. Of love which reaches out to hold us when we least expect it. Of kindness in a smile. Or maybe the R10 handed to a car guard in a damp parking lot.

Contrasts everywhere, and so the wheel turns. A baby's first cry, a toddlers wail, a child's laughter, tween humour, teen angst. 

The impeccably dressed couple walking out of an informal settlement to visit church or the mall. The scruffy adults from high end homes. Hands and hearts that meet between. A grandfather in third world Sri Lanka whose grandchildren are first world Europeans. 

Rest well, Granny Joyce. Be renewed, Thatha Meas. 

Day 174: Connoisseur

Food in lockdown. Sigh. Fussy eaters. Sigh some more. Tonight is a sample of what each day is like...

Me (trying out an oat cookie recipe): So, do you like the cookies?

Child 1: They were amazing. I even shared them with my friends. Jamie and Izzy said they are sooooo good!

Me: And you? (to Child 2)

Child 2: Not really.

Me: But you took two to school. Did you share them?

Child 2 (indignant): NO!

Me: So you ate them. 

Child 2: Yes. So?

Me: So you like them?

Child 2: No. They're ok. 

Me: OK, so I won't put any in your lunch box tomorrow?

Child 2: You can put them in my lunchbox. 

Me: Hmmm.  

And then pasta sauce tonight...

Dad: This is REALLY good!

Child 2: It's ok. 

Child 1: I loooove it when you make spaghetti sauce! 

Me: What do you mean it's ok?

Child 2: Well, its really good, but you forgot the red wine. 

Me: We don't have red wine.

Child 2: Well, we did have red wine. Did you drink it all? You shouldn't have drunk it. But I guess this sauce is ok. But it would have been better with red wine.  (Goes back for second and third helpings). You should use red wine next time, really.

As I am pondering the idiosyncrasies of Child 2 and his food requirements, Child 1 walks in and finds me writing this and spots my cookie, the fifth last cookie in what was a FULL large cookie jar last night. 

Child 1: Ohhhhhhh! (with her eyes fixed firmly on my cookie, although she ate a toasted sarmie at 5.30, 2 apples at 5.45 and a bowl of pasta at 6.15)

Me: NO! MINE!

Child 1 starts the puppy eyes. I stuff the cookie in my mouth, take a bite, put it down well out of her reach and keep on writing while Child 1 reads over my shoulder, giggling. 

Child 1: Are we really like that?

Me: Hah! Go and shower before we are loadshed! 

Anyone else relate? 

Day 173: Carousels

The carousel goes round and around. Today I had a cup of tea with a dear friend whose wisdom, courage and fortitude I greatly admire. She balances lives and parents and kids and suicide watches and kindness like one of those amazing jugglers who keeps adding plates, and all with such grace and love. Did I mention kindness? 

This carousel of life has ups and downs and sometimes I feel that we don't know what animal we are going to be riding when it all stops and we have to get off. Or which animal, in the scramble for a spot, we will end up mounting. 

I am reminded, in the scramble and the hurly burly music and the dizziness, that these things are temporary. That there is actually solid ground beneath the carousel, and that that solid ground will be there long after the carousel has been packed up and moves on. 

I'm very grateful for that solid ground. 

(Finding our feet again. Living beyond this moment. Eternity in our eyes. Here's to friends and tea.)

Day 152 - Cracking an egg

Parenting teens is meant to be challenging. I have been warned. But I had no idea that an 11 year old could have a temper tantrum because he thought he had broken the yolk when he cracked an egg into a frying pan. But then, I also had no idea that I could fall over the edge because of an egg too. 

Hooray. Cracking eggs. Seriously?!

Day 151 - Careering off the tracks

17 days since my last post. Which was the night before Crumble (or involuntary school hols for 4... no, make that 2 weeks). And 151 days since my first COVID post. 

We watched "Back to the future" the other night. It's funny seeing what they thought 2020 would hold. Self-drying clothes, hoverboards, flying cars. Definitely not coronavirus! Or Beirut blowing up, the Mont Blanc glacier about to fall over, Trump's border wall falling over and let me see? Heatwaves in the UK, SpaceX taking the first manned US flight to the moon, unattended Grand Prix races or even the 75th anniversary of Hiroshima. It's all pretty wild. 

My quads are quaking after a gentle stroll up the Jeep Track to the dams on the top of Table Mountain, a snack, then a quick descent down Cecilia Ridge. It was a good 14km round trip. But darn, two days of "ouch!" and "ow" every time I sit or stand up. It's embarrassing! The kids are fine although the teen did zing her ankle a bit scrambling downhill. 

It's been a good long weekend for getting out - TM on Friday, Berg River Dam on Sat, pouring rain all of Sunday (we watched the spectatorless GP) and then off to the West Coast National Park tomorrow. No idea if we'll see flowers but we will see some friends. Those COVID bubbles seem to be expanding. And then kids back to school on Tuesday. 

2020 definitely hopped the tracks. I'm still confused. Looking for the custard to top off the Crumble. It feels like a lot of crumble right now. 

Final scrambled thought as today is Women's Day. You might "strike a woman, strike a rock" but no woman is a rock. We all crumble. Thinking of D who is brave and standing up despite a man who has betrayed her and a car accident last night. Praying for S who is living courageously raising daughters in a tough nation. Remembering all my precious C's. 

Day 134 - Corona crumble

Well, just as we are back in routine again at last and I've been able to work and write and do some of what I did before... the blessed Minister just announced schools will close for 4 weeks. Marvellous. The teen only gets two weeks off however.

I feel like singing "Life is fun" which is the youngest's favourite song right now. Gotta make the most of it.

I'm feeling grrrr.

It might also be the glimpse into Khayelitsha today, full of people who would ordinarily be working, or at school. The smoke from shacks that burned down. The melted tar on the roads from protests. Plastic tied to stakes, waving in the wind to mark out land grabs. The scrawny dogs nosing around for food. The eyes watching me as I delivered aid for a family, silently commenting "you are not like us".

There is injustice in it all. The corona shows the crumble.

The 2020 mid-year population estimate has SA at 59,6 million people (http://www.statssa.gov.za/?p=13453). Including me.

Day 123 - Cos there are limits!

Yee haa. A year in just 3 and a bit months. How about some stats?

1 jar of Jacobs coffee - bought and paid for by the boy child
1 gardener finally working every two or three weeks
2 - the average number of cups of coffee each per day
2 LTE contracts - cos one was not enough
2 cats
2 kids - still alive and arguing a lot
2 bottles of wine in the first 6 weeks
3 months in and counting
3 days of youngest back at school
3 full time computers, 1 dodgy old one and 1 borrowed computer
4 hours (per day) - the old homeschooling timetable in the morning
4 puzzles
4 - the average number of cups of tea Adam and I each have per day
5.5 the number of bottles of wine in the cupboard for Wine Lockdown 2
6 weeks that older child has been back at school
6.30 - the time the alarm goes off nowadays
7 - the time the kids spring into action and start getting dressed
7.30 - the time they leave in the morning
10 - the number of litres of milk we go through in a week
14.30 - collection time in the afternoon
17 weeks of paying for house cleaning services and doing it ourselves
24 public library books
25 school library books
120 early morning coffees
1,000,000 "boreds" from the boy child

And a million and zillion "no no no no no-NOs" for requests for more screen time! Setting new limits!

Day 110 - Considering teenagers and the need for family rituals

Well, it's a very cold Thursday and I really, really want to just go back to bed. I've had two cups of coffee, two slices of bread and cheese, and three cookies. It's 11am and the rain is coming. I've cancelled the almost-teen's birthday party booking at a local pottery studio because I am concerned about public spaces, only to get a sms from them telling me that they are closing indefinitely. Sadness. Now to restructure a birthday under pandemic conditions.

In this null space I am taking a few moments to read a book by a local high school principal on raising and surviving teens. And one of the things he talks about is the importance of family rituals. So now I am reviewing and rebranding our rituals:

• Morning cuddles and coffee (for parents) before getting up
• Screen-free Friday days followed by Burger/Pizza Night and a series
• Family movie night Saturdays
• Sunday Lunch with proper pudding
• Sunday night Scrambled Egg on toast followed by Milo & Marshmallows
• Birthdays: pancake & presents for breakfast, cupcakes for school, pizza for supper 

Other less regular happenings are Cycle/Run with Dad. Family Walk.  And we try to have Family weekend aways and camping every 6 weeks or so. I'm wondering what new rituals we should create and develop to take us into the teen years. 

Maybe a night away with Mom or Dad camping when they hit their teens? Or snow chasing missions?

I guess we have rituals sorted? Including the one where I get asked "mom, do you know where xxx is?" at least five times a day. 

Day 107 - Crunching the numbers

Day 107? What is happening to time?

In between days 95 and 107 there has been quite a lot of rain, I tried to empty the pool a bit and REALLY emptied it, some homework, school, assessments, movie nights, a scrabble game, online quiz, meaningful conversations with friends, one social distancing breakdown (we had friends over today - eek), a zillion class WhatsApp messages, lots of "I'm bored" by the kid stuck at home until the 13th and I am not sure what else.

Trying to crunch the numbers and remember what has been happening has been getting harder. And I am not the only who feels like the days are shortening and speeding past.

Time to stop the bus and step off.

Day 95 - Coin and carpet tossing

I've just been reminded of seeing both sides. The frustrated child tantrumming over school work this morning (does tantrumming have one m or two?) and the bright, enthusiastic boy who loves his friends, sports and his cat. The girl-child who tossed her clean school shirts on an unwashed kitchen floor storming off shouting "No one thinks about ME!" and the resilient girl who, despite physical limitations, climbs mountains and swims in the swim squad.

Top side of carpet or bottom side? Patterns vs threads. Heads vs tails. Or, if I can be daring, colour 1 vs colour 2. Nation vs nation and kingdom vs kingdom.

It's time we learnt to stop and look more closely. And realise that the messy side is a part of the beautiful side. If we can accept both sides, perhaps the messy will seem less messy? Isn't that what three weeks of quiet was meant to give us? Time to reflect and reset.

I quite long for those three weeks which were not very quiet. Maybe I'll get to that kitchen floor today.

Day 93: Counting the months

Today is exactly 3 months since lockdown. It seems hard to comprehend. Like why water runs off a duck's back or why silver trees become more silver in the rain. Or perhaps like rainbows. If you shift, they vanish. Or become bigger.

I was part of an imbizo in KZN in November and one of the in-house jokes which always brought gales of laughter was someone shouting "Change the position!" whenever we took photos. I feel a bit like there is something in me shouting that same thing.

"Change the position!"

So yesterday I did. My weekly outing (other than school runs) had me hauling the youngest along just to get him out of his sister's space. And along the way I concocted Sunday "lunch up a mountain". Anywhere where we could change the position. DLH (dearly loved hubby) has been hunched in front of screens all week. The tween no less so. How I love Microsoft's family setting where I can turn him off remotely!  The teen is back at school so she at least has minimal reason to be glued to that ^&*%%%$$:( machine in the study.

Beautiful views over the Constantia Valley with soft rains sweeping across the hills then vanishing, silver trees gleaming bright, Constantiaberg being coy and playing with mist. Gosh, the moaning and groaning. When the next big cloud came over towards us it got properly wet, but we found an overhang and huddled with our backs the sweeping curtains and dug out our sarmies. The teen sat on a thorny bush which tried to come home with her - I had to liberate her jeans and jacket - and the tween was freezy weezy. Hot tea makes most things feel better and by the time we started back down, they were hopping and skipping and swishing raindrop-laden branches at each other with giggles of glee.

Changing the position changes something in me each time I do it.

Maybe I should do it more often.

Still Day 86: Climbing the roof

Today our youngest spent quite a lot of time on the roof. Fortunately the cat likes the roof too, so the two kept each other company and commiserated about "History books" and "sticking things in" and "mean parents who won't let me play computer games" and "I thought I had done all my work but I haven't" and more.

The cat was infinitely more sympathetic than the parents.

I really hope I don't crack a tooth in this process of unlockdown. It's come close several times. And then some kind soul sends me a meme about some fruit that is being born in me right now, and I must admit, I'd like to take aim and send that fruit back at the sender with some oomph.

Faith and fruit and life. Darn messy, trampled, picked up again, examined, real. I simply LOVE my friends who are real too in the clutter and chaos and holy moments of being alive with children in this time and this age, navigating this minute, this day and this life.

You know who you are.

Thanks for throwing a life preserver of sanity and a smile to me today!

Day 86: Contemplating breathing in Africa

This morning I am borrowing a poem from a dear friend. It kind of hits that intersection between "I can't breathe" and "I don't know how to respond without offence". Because, I don't. Black lives do matter. Apartheid is still alive. White privilege is real. And I am in the sticky gum of it all with my own heart untrustable and my own prejudices ingrained because of where I was born, who I was born to, the times that I live in. Social media and not-so-social media storm fronts on every side.

I have a peach skin. I'm officially classified as white in my country. I had a safe and loving childhood. I am so grateful. My children reap the fruit of my grandparents, parents and my/our hard work. My  love of my Africa is deep and profound. My experience is so different from that of others. Different sides of a mirror that for me seems clear and hope-filled and for my neighbours and colleagues is tarnished.

I love Deborah's words penned several years ago, but so real and vibrant and my heart cry again today.

WHITE WOMAN AFRICAN

Deborah Hancox

Father, you could have ordained

That I be born

Anywhere….

A busy European city

A Himalayan hamlet

A desert camp in North Africa

A mansion in Hollywood

Or on the streets of Calcutta.

I might have been

An Inuit in the snow

A San on a cerise sand dune

A farmer working paddy fields in China

Or a cowboy in Mexico.

But you ordained

That I be born

White

Woman

South African

and therefore African.

Lord, I do not question your wisdom.

Father, you could have ordained

That,

Within my white woman South African African-ness

I be born

Anytime…

When Dutch businessmen saw their need for the abundance of our land,

When refugees from France found freedom from religious tyranny,

Or when the poor, duped fortune seekers arrived from England.

I could have been born in the back of an ossewa moving relentlessly into land not ours,

I could have been born, like my grandmother, the daughter of a Kimberley miner who scratched the earth for riches.

I could have been born and even died, a baby in a concentration camp.

Or like my mother, born on the eve of a foreign war from which her father returned, a stranger.

But you ordained

That I be born

At a time of apart-ness.

At a time of South Africa turned in upon herself.

At a time of South Africa needing to know and love deeply.

Lord, I do not question your wisdom.

So, in my white woman African-ness

I ask 

What Lord,

What do you want me

To be and to not be

To do and to not do.

For you know the plans you have for me.

Plans to prosper not to harm.

Plans to give hope and a future.

And you have waiting, waiting, waiting, good works prepared in advance.

So in this intersection of time and place

A fleeting moment –

My moment that you chose for me -

I ask only

That I may marry your eternal purposes

With my actions in this moment.

Lord, be it unto me according to your will.

Day 78 - Come month end

May has come and May has gone. How do you separate the tick from the tock? It seems so strange that tomorrow we can go out and exercise at any time but restrictions like "tour guides can hike, but ordinary citizens cannot" are in place. Schools are meant to go back, and then they are not. Pavements are accessible but beach walks, parks and the sea are not. The pendulum swings wildly and it feels rather uncontrolled as time speeds up and slows down without paying attention to the rhythms of nature. 

One of our neighbours passed away last night. Completely unexpectedly. She was caring for her terminally-ill mother and well, she died first. We don't know them personally. But the news led to interesting conversations about what each of us would do if today was our last day. 

HH would find a sunset and eat a great melanzane. SB would have calamari and visit all his mates to say goodbye. Teen would eat pizza and have a swim in the sea. And me? I'm not sure. Swim in a mountain stream and find that sunset and stand hand-in-hand with HH, arms around Teen and SB. 

Ten virgins were waiting for a bridegroom. Five fell asleep and the oil in their lamps burnt out. Five remained awake and were ready. 

As lockdown "ends", I wonder how much oil I have right now? 

At month-end our internet has been used up. My mobile phone minutes are done. We've navigated another 31 days of coronavirus-loaded days and nights. My parents turned 71. Mothers' Day 2020 came and went. School continued online with some subjects shedding tasks like a dog shakes off water. Tannie Hester passed. HH has done his back in for the second time. Spiffy died and was brought back through the skilled hands of our mechanic Andrew. I finished with one client and found another two. Angel's paw puffed up and recovered. We've shared coffee-in-bed, tea times, walks, lunch times, supper times, argued, cried, shouted, laughed. Some of us have showered more than others (ugh). 

Oil. That which fuels our lives.

Day 73 - Catching the wind

These are unprecedented times. What should my response be?

"Unprecedented prayers? If our prayers and our seeking are not unprecedented, if our expression of love is not unprecedented, if anything we do as the church is still the same thing that we did last week or last year, then are we relevant?" - from the discussion with Ken Costa on Wildfires tonight.

There needs to be an unprecedented longing for the Son of God in me. Is there an unprecedented longing for the Son of God in me?

# SetTheSail  # CatchTheWind

Day 72 - Catching wildfires

I'm listening in to the UK Wildfires broadcast tonight. Worship. Word. World. Some thoughts that I will need to process:

• If I leave lockdown with memories of Netflix binges and not much else, how have I used the time given to me? 

That one is easy. I haven't binged on Netflix. Neither on books, or choc. We've had lunches and suppers together, games nights, movie nights. I've used a lot of time chasing school work but I am learning to give them the school work to do. It is theirs, after all. Not mine.

• When coronavirus hit, the church responded by leaping into online services, virtual meetings, watch parties, emails and changed preaching programmes. They are also telling stories. But while stories are important, changing the narrative is "importanter".

So, I'm not sure how to verbalise this thought I am processing. Maybe by rephrasing? What is church to me, in me, through me?

I've hardly engaged with the church I attend in this time. I've muted the emails, newsletters, whatsapps, groups, zoom calls. The silence has been golden, restorative and welcome. Oh dear. That sounds rough. Eight weeks in and I feel like I am just emerging again, cautiously. Maybe not into a "church space" but into a space where church is the people I actually interact with, not the place I attend once a week where people only nod at me.  

I'm thinking of a friend exploring missio Dei, of another reaching out to her other-religion neighbours in a country far from here, yet another with whom I meet once a week so we can shop together, the friends I've chatted to on their curbsides, the one who called just to say hi. 

Being church has meant phoning parents from school groups to say hi and let them know they are not alone, whatsapping daily stories with 4 ladies who live 1600km from me, completing writing work with excellence late at night and editing a Club newsletter at the drop of a hat. It's real, alive, compassionate, awkward. 

• During this pandemic - what is my sacred pace?

I do know that the first two weeks were quiet, then life ramped to about-normal speeds. Maybe faster than normal with meals, school AND work on top of house, family, parents. This blog has been a sacred place. 

How to set a sacred pace and now maintain it? That's another question to resolve. But maybe not at 11pm after working until 00:30 last night!

Final thought. This is day 72 of coronavirus impact on our family. 

Of the 365 days in this year, we have spent 1/5th of our year dealing with coronavirus and we have lived through 40% of this year. Chase a wildfire, catch a wildfire. Just stats. Crazy stats. No interpretation.

Day 65 - Counting blessings

After one of the most difficult parenting days ever due to procrastination and the inevitable crash and burn, ending the day in solitude in my study has been such a gift. I would include silence, but the cat is snoring next to me on the other office chair.

HH dropped off a cup of tea an hour ago. I've press released, invoiced, caught up with tasks, cleared my inbox (mostly) and even updated a website. More than I've done for a week I think! Good to see one client picking up their marketing actively during lockdown. Fantastic to see another client thinking out the box and extending their gorgeous farm accommodation to include events like weddings. Encouraging to see another client communicating what they are doing on social media at long last. Heart-warming to see an NPO I have worked with for five years continuing to do good work as they have swung their staff into food relief and social work supervision whilst still caring for the many families and children they normally work with.

Grateful for my clients who give me a window into their worlds and an opportunity to support their dreams, achievements and businesses. God is good to me. And to our family.

Deep breath in and out. Time to sleep, rest and ask God to restore His presence in me (and my bestest peoples) so I can coach this family through school at home tomorrow.

Day 54+8 - Counting days

I was lying in bed this morning trying to count the days. Then the hours. Then the minutes. It seems so strange to work out this has been our lives for 62 days now. SIXTY TWO DAYS. And the official South African lockdown count is 50 days.

It's strange how minutes feel like hours at 4am. And how days felt like years at the start of lockdown. At first "the great adventure of saving lives". Then "lockdown light - we don't like it but it's necessary". Now it feels a bit more like "this is just how life will be forever" and we have started establishing rhythms and routines. 

Waking to the alarm at 6.30. Coffee arriving (bless that amazing man) at 6.45. Adam taking alternate kids out for cycles between 7 and 8. Me hauling a kid for a walk between 8 and 9. Work calls at 8.30. Jessica surfaces around 9. Luke has a class chat at 9.30. The tween yawning over her computer around 10. Then alternating maths, sax and piano online lessons during the week. Immovable: tea at 10, lunch at 12, snack at 3. Mom shouting at everyone to get off computers at 5. Finally shutting down at 5.30. Panic about what to cook for supper for the ravening masses who will expire if they don't eat at 6.30. Netflix goof offs until 8pm. Chasing tween to bed between 8 and 10.30pm. Small boy passing out at 9pm. Falling into bed and still telling the tween to turn off her light at 11. Waking sometime around 4am with dreams or questions or just... being awake. Reading until 5am. 

I have to ask, do I like this rhythm?  At 4am I seriously chased my thoughts all around it. 

Things I like include the coffee, kids getting out, me getting out. 

Things I am not keen on include the new "normal" of having to wear masks and not being able to breathe when I go out. I'm missing mountains and often sneak into the front garden to stare up at Constantiaberg as the sun sets to reset my heart. I don't like so much screen time with (for me) so little completed at the end of every day; the call of "mo-om" seems to sync with the moment a thought clicks in my head and is being relayed to paper. I definitely struggle with keeping up with cleaning and dusting, never mind tidying.

Most FB threads I have read talk about letting the boundaries go with regards to screens. I don't like that at all. It's surrendering ground I don't know if we can ever take back. Mind you, with the move to online schooling, I don't think we'll ever get back to a computer-life balance that is healthy unless we are camping. 

I think I need to plan some camping trips. 

Sabbath Saturdays have become my favourite time. Screen-free days. 

What's happened in the last 8 days? Mother's Day for three moms (one adopted and two biological) and organising my parents' birthday from 1600km away on May 10. Luke had a tummy bug that went both ways for Tuesday and Wednesday this week. Spiffy is still waiting resuscitation under the carport. Fabulous clients have given me interesting work. I planted veggies yesterday and am waiting to find out if they will survive to feed us. (The seeds I planted did not sprout, by the way.)  Some good conversations with friends. I have a frog as my new desktop background who looks a bit like I feel right now - hopping tired, red eyed and peering round the leaf wondering what's next. Probably not slip slops, t-shirts and crop bottom pants.  Ah, best of all, our school declared next week a 4-day week and so even Adam has taken Friday off. Hooray!

I asked the family what they are thankful for and what we will remember from these past 50 days. 

• HH's answer: Food! And how hard it is to teach and work at the same time. (I beg to disagree - he is fabulous at keeping kids on track)
• Teen (cos she actually is): My first takeaway pizza. Fighting with my brother and also going on our first walk.
• Tween (he's getting there):  Being sick and being bored. Going on my first cycle. 
• Me:  Thankful we had a garden for the first 5 weeks and had space to move. I will remember the quiet in the night and early morning and being able to hear birds in our garden instead of traffic, the street preacher at the station shouting at people and trains. 

My pic for the week. Home made masks and kisses. Maybe a few more wrinkles. 

My best bits of today? Rainbows above drenched streets and glistening diamond drops on the roadside grass as the tween and I walked home hand-in-hand. The teen laughing on a whatsapp call with her cousin who is on the furtherest part of the country to us with extreme opposite everything. The tween on a birthday call for a friend discovering he was the only guy on a Hangout with 16 girls. Cat claws reaching up to the counter saying "is that edible" as I made food. Crisp duvet sheets to burrow into. Finding the mozzie machine refill accidentally. Tea with HH. 

Grateful for the small things. And God somehow in it all. 

Day 54 - Cowabunga!

Photo by Thanti Nguyen on Unsplash

Today felt like being tumbled in the waves. It started at about 2am with zinging mosquitoes and a super-bright super moon and every dog in the neighbourhood barking. I gave up on sleep at 2.15 and got up, to be joined by my sore hubby. He's done something to his back (it turns out) but at 2.30am I was googling sore kidneys and plying Dr Google with questions. Eventually we chased down 3 of the 4 mosquitos I could see and put the fan on to blast the fourth one to wherever and gone. Preferably to splat status.

6.45 came all too early. A very cautious husband took the tween out for her first bike ride for months and probably her first real exercise for 6 weeks. She huffed and she puffed but made it home with a smile. I shot out immediately to walk our local suburbs flat in the 35 minutes left of lockdown. Lots of people were out. Happy dogs, teens kicking rugby balls, babies in prams, grandparents striding out wearing their masks. I only made it back before the clock tolled 9 by sprinting a block or two!

Adam left for the doc and  four minutes later I got the call. Spiffy had died in the middle of Main Road. I left the kids doing school and quickly swapped cars with him, and while he headed for medical help, I called for tow truck help and tried to jump start my car to no avail. Spiffy got a ride home and Adam got back as we offloaded her on the pavement.

Roll on the rest of the day - saxophone lessons, English classes, class calls, work calls for Adam, food, emails, something or other in the middle and a run out to shops to get supper and 5 litres of petrol which was apparently why the car would not go.

Ninja helped us put it in, but Spiffy lit up and refused to move. So we all pushed her backwards and then into the driveway. Don't tell my physio. I'm aching now. Sigh. And remembering the work I was supposed to do.

Some days you duz. Some days you just duzzent. Some days you duz and duz and work duzzent happen. I'm duzzent out right now. Ah well.

Cowabunga, dudes! Maybe I'll ride the wave tomorrow instead of being tumbled.

Day 51 - Cracks

crack

/krak/

Learn to pronounce

noun

1. 1.

   a line on the surface of something along which it has split without breaking apart.

   "a hairline crack down the middle of the glass"
2. 2.

   a sudden sharp or explosive noise.

   "a loud crack of thunder"

We had the sudden sharp and explosive crack today. It was going to come, it has warned of its coming for weeks now, and this afternoon the tween lost her blob and cracked. Over maths and natural science worksheets and life and lockdown.

I must say, I feel the same right now. I desperately wish I could push her out on her bicycle and send out to pedal out the rage and frustration and tiredness and ever-lasting-darn-it-screen-square eyes. To MAKE her engage with air and space and mountains and views and anything that is not the (admittedly reasonably large at 496sqm) boundaries of our property. To get her heart pumping and her muscles working and those atrofied parts alive with red blood cells bringing life back to wan and limp limbs and blah expressions.

Lockdown can make you lose your laugh.

Day 50 - Corona

corona¹

/kəˈrəʊnə/

Learn to pronounce

noun

1. 1.

   ANATOMY

   a part of the body resembling or likened to a crown.
2. 2.

   ASTRONOMY

   the rarefied gaseous envelope of the sun and other stars. The sun's corona is normally visible only during a total solar eclipse, when it is seen as an irregularly shaped pearly glow surrounding the darkened disc of the moon.

We are one seventh of the way through this year. One seventh of this year has been spent in isolation. Standing strong behind our closed doors or cowering before coronavirus. I'm not sure quite which it is. For some, eating cake and for others scrabbling for bread. 

I find it interesting that this virus has been named as one of the "corona" viruses. The crown. It compresses our heads and forces our thoughts to either clarify or scramble. It crowns our actions with compassion or dispassion. 

In astronomical terms, we only see a corona when the sun - the brightest thing in our lives - is eclipsed. So many bright things in our lives have been eclipsed as we have locked down our families, our homes, our actions and our everyday. What does the rarified gaseous envelope of my life look like right now? Now that's an interesting question. 

You can't hide much from the light. However, what shines when everything is dark?