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?