simply a shed

As I took out the compost pail, I passed this little gem of a shed and just had to stop and admire its artwork . . . one of those happy discoveries, for me, of being caught unawares by an unexpected beauty :-)

after the storm

It is nap time. And I find that the quiet in the apartment mirrors my inner feelings . . . watching the snow fall outside as I muse on the cycles of childcare. In this case, it is the post-meltdown calm that I contemplate. As I tried to explain in conversation earlier today, one never quite gets immune to the power of a distressed child: somehow, no matter how many teary sessions you have lived through, the moment is always new and all-consuming in its terrible immediacy. And so once she is happy again, it is as if you have permission to breath--and consequently, the peace is so much sweeter than if there had been no crisis prior to it.

made for walking

This morning I admired a shiny green frog as I crouched over the tub washing my hair. When I emerged, tying up my hair in a towel turban, my charge was absorbed in her project of "organizing" the contents of my suitcase. She was also modeling my shoes for me, which I gratifyingly complimented: her fine figure seemed to set off my gray flats rather stunningly :-)
[*I am currently enjoying a visit with an old friend, during which I get to hang out with her toddler on the days she is at work.]

a faucet affair

One of the things I have most enjoyed about home maintenance projects is how some of the more apparently daunting amongst them have turned into surprisingly straightforward ones. Today, for instance, I installed aerators into the water faucets. When I pulled the little gadgets out of the box they looked frighteningly minute. And with no instructions to go by, I had initial visions of dismantled parts, unhinged pipes, and the like. Looking more closely at the rim, however, I decided to try my luck at simply unscrewing [my grandpa taught me my "lefty loosey" ;-)] . . . and it worked!
I now have high falutin' energy-efficient aerated water pipes. And yet another photo of my faucet.

in and out the buttercups

Today I had a visit from an old high school friend. This meant that I also had the distinct delight of meeting her little one. As I snapped this shot of his blond halo, his mischievous grin seemed to say Watch out world, here I come!

plumbing beauty

Some days it is the simple things that one must be grateful for . . . the hum drum practicalities of life can be things of great beauty. Running water. A good plumber. Beautiful.
I learned that a portion of this house has old, hardy water pipes, while the other portion has new, copper pipes. And the combination of an exposed pipe plus these brutal temperatures proved to be a bit much. So I awoke to no water flow. Thankfully, I was able to get ahold of my plumber before opening hours, so that he bumped me up to top priority for the day. WIthin the hour, he had come, had located the problem, and had thawed the pipes before they had a chance to burst under the pressure. What could have been a major disaster was diverted, and future issues with the pipes were prevented.
And I am deeply grateful for the practical beauty of a faucet's flow.

the 5 yr.old lefty scrawl

Since returning from my holiday travels, my days have been consumed by house cleaning and clearing out. A portion of that work has included sorting through decades of my family's belongings in storage. As you might expect, this is a rather large task, in an emotional way as well as the simply practical aspect.
One surprising find was particularly interesting to me considering my recent return from teaching at my elementary school alma mater: a folder of the letters I mailed home from school.
Here is one of the letters [the text was written on the back of the painting and, in case it is not perfectly legible, reads Dear Mummy and Daddy. I like painting pictures. They look pretty on the wall. Our seeds are coming up. Love from Anna]

life in a new year

A day spent with an old friend has left me thoughtful in a slightly stereotypical, but still meaningful, way about the significance of this new year. What I am realizing, after reflecting upon the happenings and learnings of this past year, is that this new one is a year about, simply, life. Life at its most basic level, stripped of the trappings of societal expectations, material possessions, and self and other-imposed stresses. If I let go of all the preoccupations I so readily get caught up with in any given day, what do I have left? What am I really living for? What am I spending my time working towards? If I am honest, in a gut-level way, I fear that I must admit to many trivial, superficial tendencies. May I live in such a way, in this coming year, that my life reflects what I really care about. May it be a year of family, a year of meaning . . . a year of life.

hand in hand

On this, my last night to cuddle with my niece, I stared at her tiny hand as she slept, firmly clasping my own, more weathered and less lovely one*
*incidentally, the lighting of this photo is due to an attempt to capture the moment without awakening the little one with the disturbance of a flash. . . and only afterwards did I realize that I liked the consequential effect of the photo's color cast :-)

hair and there

tonight i was touched by the peaceful air of these two as they sat, my niece and her uncle. i was also, incidentally, amused by the contrast between full and not-so-full heads of hair :-)

the evening mood

she seemed fittingly serene as i enjoyed a christmas eve cuddle with my niece . . . so at grandma's bidding, her uncle grabbed my camera to capture the moment

. . . by the chimney with care

i am blessed. thanks to my brother's marriage into a most amazing family, i am enjoying a welcoming "home"coming for the holidays. and one small example of this is tonight's project: here i caught a moment of Mom at work on my stocking. she has not yet missed one family member, in her traditional handwork, and i, even as a grafted member, am no exception.

as if . . .

. . . she needed to give her auntie an excuse to capture another moment of her "grace" :-)

heaven

my perfect niece and her lovely mama :-)

from where i sit . . .

. . . i watch the snow fall over the Sound, happy to be on the inside looking out. the great thing about traveling is reconnecting with old friends. so tonight an old college friend and i take refuge from the cold in her lovely apartment. we dine on fine pacific fare, listen to seasonal music, and enjoy the warmth of fellowship on a cold day in december.

the end

As a good-bye gift, under the supervisions of my dear friend and coworker, the students all put together this book, into which each one contributed her or her unique portion. I have been sentimentally savoring it, amazed at their creativity and humbled by their thoughtfulness . . . is this the end of the chapter or the end of the book?

aflight

Since arriving in this area, I have been fascinated by the beauty of the Cattle Egrets, wanting to have my camera in hand each time I see them. So I was excited to have it while driving over to the nearby farm with Jill. As I stood outside the car to take this photo she assisted me by honking on the horn and startling the birds . . . and causing them to oblige my up-to-then vain calls and whistles :-)

on this day

I remember, this day--November 30--in 1988. On this day, I awoke excited--no, more than that--I was ecstatic. I was running through lines of the Christmas program in my head, eagerly rehearsing for the program that night. You see, tonight we were performing for our families, for my family. They were on their way by this time, I knew, beginning the drive early that morning that would bring them along many lonely dirt roads, winding through villages and across open plains, to arrive here.
It had been 3 months now since I last saw them, when I boarded the little Cessna on the grass strip of our village, clutching my stuffed bear in one arm and holding my sister's hand with the other. We stood there waving goodbye one last time on the boarding stairs, and then waved again out the window as we sped along the airstrip and lifted off into the air. I loved that moment of lifting off in the airplane--and have ever since--the exciting rush of becoming airborne and soaring faster and faster through the air.
That day, however, my excitement of the beginning was tinged with the sadness of knowing I would be away from my family for many nights now. The days were always full of learning, fun adventures in the bush with friends and with various creatures to be discovered and trees to be climbed. The nights were the hard part, though, when I fought the tears that often came in spite of my fierce will, silently dampening my pillow while I stifled the shortened breaths that may give away my tears to the classmates sleeping near me in rows of bunk beds.
The 3 months since that last flight had passed quickly--3 months of good books read, math problems solved, geography discovered, play weddings acted out in free time, and all manner of grade 4 activities. I had also turned 9 the previous month, and knew my family would now celebrate my birthday and my brother's 4th birthday 3 days earlier, as soon as we made it back home. While on a shopping trip in South Africa, my Dad had acquired our first car, so the decided to make the road trip instead of Helen and I flying home as we had always done before. So, I knew they were loaded up in the Isuzu, along with 2 village friends--a teenage student of my Dad's and the Zambian pastor he worked with in our Church.
So that afternoon, after various activities designed to keep all us boarding students preoccupied so we wouldn't be bouncing off the walls with the excitement of our families' arrivals, we all filed out the drive-up area to await the first arrivals. I had in my mind the perfect picture of what to expect, so as each vehicle arrived, I craned my neck to see my mom's long arm waving out the window and Alex's goofy grin peering out from her lap. But the cars came, parents claimed their clamoring kids, and my picture-perfect arrival still had not appeared. Finally, a lady I recognized as the mom of some friends who lived fairly near us went over to our Dorm Mother and said something to her, gesturing in our direction. She then came and told us to go ahead and get ready for the program--not to keep waiting for our parents there.
I was disappointed, but assumed they would arrive at any moment, so just kept waiting as we practiced our songs. My mental image just altered itself to adjust to a late clamor of hugs and kisses rushed in before the program started . . . but the program came, began, and ended, and they had not arrived. The next morning we were taken to the Cessna, and told we were going to go back to the village by flight after all. This time I imagined the whole family standing there on the airstrip, coming into focus as the plane landed, with eager smiles and waves--still, no. The parents of a classmate took us in their car instead--so of course I changed my expectation once more, this time thinking they were taking us to our house where the family would be, picture-perfect, waiting in front of our little home.
Instead we arrived at their house. Auntie Elaine (according to British habit, all family friends were "Auntie" and "Uncle" to us kids) finished up dinner preparations while we helped set the table. And then, instead of sitting down to dinner, she asked Helen and I to come and sit with her on the couch--"Anna, Helen--I have some really sad news . . . your Daddy went to heaven . . . " Before the sentence was finished, I had burst into loud sobs, Helen looked at me and started crying, and Auntie Elaine and her daughter were both crying and hugging us.
I don't remember any mention of the rest of the family at that point--nor did I wonder, as far as I can remember. The rest of the day, of the week, of the month, passed in a sort of a fog, in which my memories are clear but displaced, as if each memory was plucked from its proper place in the continuum of time and placed instead in some never never land of homeless moments.
I remember falling asleep with fitful dreams, waking up convinced I had dreamed reality, and that Daddy would walk in and comfort me any moment. I remember being reunited with my brothers, staring at Alex's discolored and misshapen head, and carting Ian around carefully in his body cast, propping him up against walls . . . supporting him and holding his modesty blanket over his midsection as he pinned the tail on the donkey at his belated birthday party. I remember visiting Mom there in the Zambian hospital, horrified at the sight of my strong, active, beautiful mother lying there on the stretcher bed unable to move herself. At one point during a visit, the nurse had to turn her over so that she wouldn't get a bed sore. As she did so, she let go of the sheet and mom was briefly exposed to us all in the room. I didn't know whether to blush, sob, or scream--I wanted to just run away, to disappear forever into the endless, dreadfully beautiful African wilderness. I hated seeing mom like that, and dreaded the visits . . . and I hated myself for feeling that way, thinking there must be something wrong with me if I didn't want to see my mother . . .
Somehow, time passed. My Daddy's funeral passed in a blur of friends, strangers, languages I didn't know, and wails I knew only too well. As soon as mom was strong enough to be transported, we were shipped to the U.S., where hospitalization and then physical rehab came for her. I hid in my books--in beautiful worlds of fantasy--to the extent that my grandmother still teases me for always having my "nose stuck in a book" as a child.
And eventually Mom was well enough to take over the care of the 4 of us again. I still don't know for the life of me how she did it--a paraplegic supporting and caring for a home of her own and 4 not-always-angelic children. She did it well . . . she loved us well.
On this day, as a child, Mom beautifully commemorated the anniversary. She would buy what looked to me like hundreds of helium-filled balloons, bringing them home so that the house was bursting with balloons. Then she tied note cards to the string of each one, and told us to write notes on them--as many as we wanted, and whatever we wanted to say to a stranger. I remember writing things like "Jesus loves me this I know . . ." and "My Daddy died on this day, and he is now in heaven with God, because he loved God. I do too." I wrote silly notes, but meaningful ones, longing, in all my childhood intensity, to somehow tell the world that I had a great Daddy, and that some day I would see him again.
I still catch myself, when I am still enough to listen to the deeper desires of my heart, craving moments of remembrance of my Daddy, and eagerly clasping to memory any tidbits about him that people from his past may be able to share with me. And thankfully my own mind clamped down firmly on all the memories I had of my times with him, out of a personal need for them and, I suspect, out of a nagging suspicion that someday, somehow, there would be a greater use for, outlet for, it all.

Happy Birthday Ian!

In honor of this oh-so-momentous occasion, here is an appropriately themed story written by one of my students. The assignment was to invent an interesting birthday party account, and this was Ntshenisi's tale:

. . . During the party an interesting thing happened. I saw a hot dog and daddy’s guitar dancing together. I looked closely to see, but I saw the same thing. I went to call Miss J. She saw a banana and an apple dancing together. She tried to see who was dancing closely but she failed.
She said her magic words. This is how they sound. Akabo bo zorbopo Aka bra kaka wizojo yo lagobrak. These words were hard to say.
She went to get Miss A.. Miss A saw an elephant dancing with an ant! She looked closely too, then she started to act like a monkey. I told her to stop and she did.
I forgot that it was my birthday. My brother also guessed who was dancing. Since he liked cars and dinors, he said a hot wheeler which is a car was dancing with a dinors. I gave him a slap. Miss J, Miss A, my brother, and I went to call the professor. He said it was just mom and daddy dancing.
I saw closely and it was!
The end.

ye olde recital

This morning we held the end-of-term piano recitals, and I was terribly impressed--not simply by how well the students did, but also by how each one so properly introduced themselves and the piece they were playing . . . along with the nice touch of a slight bow. Beautiful Womba had a special touch, as she included a second piece that she had composed: a truly lovely piece, entitled "Long Night," that she was playing as I took this photo.