It’s funny how the universe sends us people that can either enrich or destroy our lives, the premise being that we can learn from both types of people. Joan and Clyde are a couple that I’m sure are going to teach me a lot. They are both in their sixties but they live young, grabbing life by the luridly patterned Hawaiian shirt collar and enjoying it to its unpredictable and wild limits.
The three of us were having breakfast at Siemens and the conversation swivelled from vegetarianism (Clyde had recently been converted by a You Tube clip about how we treat our about-to-be slaughtered animals) and exposing children to the idea of butchering animals, to the experiences that life had sent our way. Clyde mentioned that Joan had led a fascinating life and that she should write a memoir. Joan being shy and humble commented that her life was both too complicated, and she was too private to lay her life out like that for everyone to view. Maybe, she pondered, she would do it if she could write under a pseudonym. Clyde prompted her a little and she relented, sipping her tea she recounted an experience she had had in her youth.
“A long time ago I used to counsel prisoners on death row. In those days they were doing several executions a week, it was a mess. Some of them were really bad men, in for the worst crimes, and others shouldn’t have been there.” She was visiting a prisoner whom she was counselling that was on death row, when he asked if he could ask her a question. He said that when a prisoner was removed to the nearby hanging chamber for execution, the guards would fetch the prisoner and then slam the door to the cell shut as they left. The prisoner would stand in the double volume communal space that was separated by wire mesh from the cells inhabited by other prisoners and call out, “I’m going now”.
Normally the cells were noisy, but when the door slammed and the prisoner spoke, a quiet would fill the void and no one spoke. He felt that at that moment someone should say something, acknowledge him in some way. It felt wrong not to say something.
“What”, he wanted to know, “should they reply to this man going to his death?” Joan paused. Captivated I asked, “What did you say?” “I told him to say, we will remember you.” I must have looked confused because she elaborated. In the black African cultures, a person lives on as long as someone remembers them. Knowing that the prisoner is going to his death and hearing what may be some of his last words is memorable. It sticks in the mind of his fellow inmates. He is heard and remembered, continuing to live long after he takes his last breath.
I find this belief comforting. My Grandfather lives in my memory, and through my stories of him to my children he will continue to exist.
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Monday, January 24, 2011
Turning Forty.
Misery loves company, and as most of you know, I am feeling very miserable to be turning forty next week. So my inner journalist went into collection mode and I started interviewing everyone I met regarding their thoughts on ‘passing over’ into the big Four Oh.
Mario, the kids Karate Sensei, turns forty next year and he’s already in the early stages of mourning the demise of his thirties. According to him as soon as he’s forty he will be too old to act childish. In his thirties he could act juvenile, but as soon as he’s in his forties he won’t be able to get away with that sort of behaviour. When the clock strikes midnight, his forties begin, a giant cosmic switch flicks, and responsible behaviour and maturity commence. This from the man who pretends to throw children out of the first floor window on their birthdays… maturity, I think not.
A mom I chatted to at a recent birthday party told me she felt fantastic. She said she was more decisive, self-aware, and knew what she wanted from her life now that she was forty-six. She’d had her children and was now pursuing her career with the confidence that she could control every situation. It helped that she looked fantastic and had that ageless skin and radiance that only an African skin can produce. I looked carefully and she didn’t even have wrinkles around her eyes! In my next life, I want to be black! Another mom decided that she wanted to learn to play the cello and started taking lessons. They both seemed to feel that turning forty was not the end of an era but the beginning of one, a time in their lives when they knew what they wanted and had the drive and will power to get it.
I need only look at my Mom and Dad to know that ambition and vitality has no age restriction. My Mom will be exhibiting her sculptures in both Germany and Portugal this year. She only started to sculpt in her late thirties. Dad will be driving people to do better and more dynamic things at companies where he owns shares. They taught me that age was just a number and that you were as old you felt, or to paraphrase Dad; “You are as old as the woman you are feeling”… har de har har!
Unusually, my father-in-law made the most impact. He said, “Just wait till you get to sixty-five!” I caught a hint of regret in his tone. Here was a man I consider very active, he hikes, has recently remarried, to a woman ten years his junior, and is always travelling somewhere. Yet he’s anxious about turning sixty-five. I mulled that over and realised that he was right; each cycle has it’s scary ages. The decade birthdays seem to be pivotal. They make us reflect and take account of where we are, and hasten change to otherwise stagnating lives.
Maybe this is what a midlife crisis feels like, it’s the fear of the unknown, of knowing that life has given you another forty years that you have to fill; and still enjoy. That fear could explain why men buy flashy cars and try to recapture their youth, the times they felt the most vigorous. While women veer towards intellectual endeavours; like the cello; or a degree they may never be able to use. The hormones that were pushing us to create life finally quieting a little so that we could hear what we really wanted to do. I’m lucky to have goals, a supportive family, a husband who loves me, children who adore me, a brain that’s hungry for knowledge and plenty of time to enjoy it all. Bring on the forties, I’m ready for you!
Mario, the kids Karate Sensei, turns forty next year and he’s already in the early stages of mourning the demise of his thirties. According to him as soon as he’s forty he will be too old to act childish. In his thirties he could act juvenile, but as soon as he’s in his forties he won’t be able to get away with that sort of behaviour. When the clock strikes midnight, his forties begin, a giant cosmic switch flicks, and responsible behaviour and maturity commence. This from the man who pretends to throw children out of the first floor window on their birthdays… maturity, I think not.
A mom I chatted to at a recent birthday party told me she felt fantastic. She said she was more decisive, self-aware, and knew what she wanted from her life now that she was forty-six. She’d had her children and was now pursuing her career with the confidence that she could control every situation. It helped that she looked fantastic and had that ageless skin and radiance that only an African skin can produce. I looked carefully and she didn’t even have wrinkles around her eyes! In my next life, I want to be black! Another mom decided that she wanted to learn to play the cello and started taking lessons. They both seemed to feel that turning forty was not the end of an era but the beginning of one, a time in their lives when they knew what they wanted and had the drive and will power to get it.
I need only look at my Mom and Dad to know that ambition and vitality has no age restriction. My Mom will be exhibiting her sculptures in both Germany and Portugal this year. She only started to sculpt in her late thirties. Dad will be driving people to do better and more dynamic things at companies where he owns shares. They taught me that age was just a number and that you were as old you felt, or to paraphrase Dad; “You are as old as the woman you are feeling”… har de har har!
Unusually, my father-in-law made the most impact. He said, “Just wait till you get to sixty-five!” I caught a hint of regret in his tone. Here was a man I consider very active, he hikes, has recently remarried, to a woman ten years his junior, and is always travelling somewhere. Yet he’s anxious about turning sixty-five. I mulled that over and realised that he was right; each cycle has it’s scary ages. The decade birthdays seem to be pivotal. They make us reflect and take account of where we are, and hasten change to otherwise stagnating lives.
Maybe this is what a midlife crisis feels like, it’s the fear of the unknown, of knowing that life has given you another forty years that you have to fill; and still enjoy. That fear could explain why men buy flashy cars and try to recapture their youth, the times they felt the most vigorous. While women veer towards intellectual endeavours; like the cello; or a degree they may never be able to use. The hormones that were pushing us to create life finally quieting a little so that we could hear what we really wanted to do. I’m lucky to have goals, a supportive family, a husband who loves me, children who adore me, a brain that’s hungry for knowledge and plenty of time to enjoy it all. Bring on the forties, I’m ready for you!
Thursday, January 13, 2011
2010 Holidays.
The Christmas holidays are over, and once again, I’m ambivalent about this. On the one hand I really enjoy having Hubby and the kids around, sleeping late and not having to cram all the extra murals into a limited amount of time. On the other I want to have my personal space back, being able to drop off the kids at school, go to Tai Chi classes and do all the running around that a stay-at-home mom does, without having to worry that the everyone is fed and watered, and kept entertained.
You would think that the children would be the most demanding, wanting to be taken to the movies, or schlepped to friends for play dates, but no, that award goes to Hubby. Every year-end his condition gets aggravated. You see he has this chronic case of the ‘Can-you’s’ that flares up during this time. I don’t think he can control it, he just blurts out, “Can you please do this? or Can you please fetch that?” in a very nice reasonable tone, that of course you can’t say no to, especially because he’s doing stuff that will end up making your life easier in the end. The problem is that his disorder only acts up when I’m in the middle of something myself, for example washing dishes that I’ve let pile up and now are so irritating that I have to do them now or ditto for laundry. Stuff I don’t really want to do but have finally plucked up the courage and willpower to do, stuff that needs momentum to finish successfully… then along come the ‘Can-you’s’. I guess it could be worse, he could have a case of the ‘Get-me’s’ as in ‘Get me a cup coffee or get me lunch’. That condition I know there is no cure for; my Dads had it for as long as I can remember.
Everybody is back into their routine now. Hubby is back at work. Josh has started ‘big school’, entering Grade one bespectacled and sombre with the immensity of it all. Jamie filled with excitement at seeing his friends, has planned visits at their houses without even asking my permission, and already set high academic goals for the year ahead. Life’s back to normal for me too, an ever growing list of stuff to do, a dreaded upcoming fortieth birthday and lots of studying and writing.
2011 stands before us full of promise and adventure, let’s grip it by the ears and give it a good shake, if we are lucky, it won’t bite us or punch us in the nose.
You would think that the children would be the most demanding, wanting to be taken to the movies, or schlepped to friends for play dates, but no, that award goes to Hubby. Every year-end his condition gets aggravated. You see he has this chronic case of the ‘Can-you’s’ that flares up during this time. I don’t think he can control it, he just blurts out, “Can you please do this? or Can you please fetch that?” in a very nice reasonable tone, that of course you can’t say no to, especially because he’s doing stuff that will end up making your life easier in the end. The problem is that his disorder only acts up when I’m in the middle of something myself, for example washing dishes that I’ve let pile up and now are so irritating that I have to do them now or ditto for laundry. Stuff I don’t really want to do but have finally plucked up the courage and willpower to do, stuff that needs momentum to finish successfully… then along come the ‘Can-you’s’. I guess it could be worse, he could have a case of the ‘Get-me’s’ as in ‘Get me a cup coffee or get me lunch’. That condition I know there is no cure for; my Dads had it for as long as I can remember.
Everybody is back into their routine now. Hubby is back at work. Josh has started ‘big school’, entering Grade one bespectacled and sombre with the immensity of it all. Jamie filled with excitement at seeing his friends, has planned visits at their houses without even asking my permission, and already set high academic goals for the year ahead. Life’s back to normal for me too, an ever growing list of stuff to do, a dreaded upcoming fortieth birthday and lots of studying and writing.
2011 stands before us full of promise and adventure, let’s grip it by the ears and give it a good shake, if we are lucky, it won’t bite us or punch us in the nose.
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