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.
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