Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Humiliating Heathrow...

Heathrow, Terminal 5. Standing in an insufferably long queue at that stage in the proceedings when bags, laptops and shoes (*sigh* yes, shoes!) are x-rayed by mirthless, uniformed officials – and I remember hoping that someone would have such ghastly smelling shoes that it would either a) make one of them laugh, or b) forever damage their olfactory bulb as punishment for being so stubbornly without human humour! Standing in that queue with this tiny little baby felt like my life’s biggest challenge – and I eyed the curious and very mobile toddlers with much envy, imagining toddlers are a million times easier to handle on international travels because they can talk and walk. And it’s only now that I have one of those talking/walking excitement-machines and our next 12 hour flight looms ever closer, that I realise all those toddlers’ moms were, in fact, eyeing ME with great envy! Anyway, I’ve digressed twice already. Back to the security check. Watching each traveller ahead of me reacting to this necessary invasion of their space passed the time quite nicely, and I suddenly found myself at the front of the queue.



“Ma’am, do you have any liquids in your hand-luggage?” (Mentally rifling through the items wallowing in the copious depths of my handbag, I wondered if three tubes of lipgloss qualified as ‘liquids’, when suddenly I remembered the bottle of milk I’d so laboriously expressed that morning at home.)





“Um, yes. I think so.” (If looks could wither, which they can – then I was certainly withered to a mere smithereen by the security official. A woman, no less.)



“Well, do you – or don’t you?”



“My baby’s milk?!” I squeaked as inaudibly as possible, hoping this woman could lip-read. My cheeks burst into fire as I felt everyone in the queue around me scrutinise me with the same shameless contemplation I’d myself previously directed at the travellers in front of me!



“Yes, baby’s milk qualifies as a liquid.”



“Even breastmilk?” All I got in response was a glare that ruthlessly crumpled me like paper destined for the trash. I hauled out the bottle with its milk sloshing limpidly about, declaring for all to see that here was indeed this young mother’s bodily fluid. I was about as embarrassed as when I’ve had to drop off a urine sample in a clear plastic vial at the doctor’s. Also, I couldn’t hide my disbelief at the thought of my breastmilk being construed as a possible bomb-component! Imagine this news headline: “Mother caught in aeroplane loo trying to detonate her breastmilk! It is, all jokes aside, an explosive issue – and 13 months later I can see how ignorant I was. But then, I was still such a newbie at the breastfeeding thing, and felt the reactions of others so sharply that I succumbed to the well-meant advice to cover up so as not to offend anyone or cause sexual thoughts in other men, or to feed my baby rice-cereal at four months so she would sleep through the night (though I now know that a baby’s gut only closes up at 7 months!)







If the same security check had to happen to me today, I would have guffawed in maternal pride and turned around to give Heathrow Terminal 5 a happy little lecture on the magnificent miracle of breastmilk – e.g. that there are four different types of stem-cells in breastmilk, reproductive cancers are much less likely to occur in the breastfeeding mother and the breastfed child etc. (I will be posting a selection of resources next week with links to exciting discoveries and research. But again, for those moms who couldn’t or wouldn’t breastfeed, please remember that I support every mother’s right to feed her child in the way that best suits them in their unique situation!) The security official asked me to please drink the milk to prove it wasn’t some conspiratorially flammable substance! If it weren’t for the deadly stringent look on her face, I would have thought she was pulling my leg – but, no, there I stood, cheeks absolutely crimson, drinking my own warm, sweet breastmilk from a baby-bottle! Needless to say, the broken breastpump, the surreal humiliation and my worry about Layla actually drinking from it to ease her ear-pressure upon take-off was for naught because Layla refused the bottle with her trademark vehemence, and it turned out to be fabulously easy to sommer just breastfeed her, seatbelted up and all! There was no screaming or visible signs of ear-pain on Layla’s part – and, in fact, she seemed to actually enjoy the take-off, and the landing, 12 hours later. The moral of the story? Try not to let the scaremongers scare you into hours of pointless worrying – because, if you can be calm and cheerful, your bub will be too!



Sunday, May 23, 2010

Chutzpah/balls/voema/gusto?

With the English summer definitively here, along with its wasps and brommers, my homesickness has ebbed slightly - but this could also be the ever-present sense of excitement knowing our arrival in Cape Town is now only 6 weeks away! (Craig has whisked Layla off with him to the butcher in Kettering which sells the most fabulous boerewors: we've run out of meat having braaied three nights in a row now! But at least with my little Layla out of earshot, I can focus on some VERY important tasks that simply can't get done while I am wearing my Mommy hat. Shame, she has had the most exhausting week with her teething keeping her awake and in tears, her head perpetually damp and hot from fever... Two molars and two eye-teeth are to blame.)

Soundtrack? Miles Davis. "Summertime".
Beverage? Need to make a cuppa, but if I had a choice, it would be a 'Cafe Romano Corretto' - a shot of earthy, rich espresso married with a shot of grappa. Ah! If only! *wink*
Goal? To write a little story for my weekly iMod slot, and to follow up on some of the newspapers and journalists who've featured my 'Malema, A Love Letter' project in their articles. (After my Radio 2000 interview on Monday morning, I couldn't help myself Googling 'Malema, A Love Letter' to see where and how it was being featured 'out there'! The response has been 95% positive - with only one myopic poephol referring to the idea negatively: but you could sommer see he hadn't actually read my original story about it: he was 'picking up stompies'! The song playing now? Miles Davis's 'Weirdo'. How apt!)

The young ANC rep I met (and tried to interview, but he was more concerned about the wandering camera crew discovering him!) in London at an expo a few months ago chickened out of giving me Julius Malema's number. And perhaps, rightly so - but we need more people with chutzpah/balls/voema/gusto if South Africa is going to stop stewing in its historical juices! Anyway, someone else has stepped forward with JM's actual cellphone number (!!!) so check back here to see how my chat with Julius went! Bizarrely, I have complete and utter peace about speaking to him. Why would I be nervous or afraid, as so many have suggested? Again, I am blaming the media for pulling the wool over the eyes of the habitually passive, unthinking South African. NEWSFLASH: The news is not the gospel truth! The juicier, the bloodier the story, the more newspapers will sell, the more advertising, blah blah blah. After 'Tea with Julius' in December, I will be taking on the country's editors in a news revolution! Just watch me! (*wink*) (--- lots of winking happening today! Must be the intoxicating combination of Miles Davis and this sweet, sweet solitude!)

Friday, May 14, 2010

The Musing Magpie

Gosh - how time flies when you're having fun! My 'Malema, A Love Letter' project has so comsumed me over the last few weeks that I've had no extra time for writing at all. But now that the project is happily established with around 2 - 4 letters a day arriving, and 10+ members joining a day, I feel like all my blood, sweat and tears has paid off and now I can sit back a little and breathe. And write! *wink*
Only 7 weeks to go until we hop on at Heathrow to catch a jumbo home for, hopefully, the last time ever! Now the messy limbo I caused 6 months agp by prematurely packing the house up can be sorted - beginning with the treasured pieces of furniture which need to be eBayed ASAP. (*sob*)
Item #1: a gorgeously divine china cabinet which I have never been able to accurately date, but can only guess comes from the 1950s (or the 60s? 70s?!) At the local recycling plant (a.k.a the rubbish dump!) I spotted it glimmering and singing, just for me, amidst the dark, dusty cabinets and bookshelves under the dank lean-to, where the okes in charge try to suss the size of your wallet out and charge you accordingly. Craig bought it for 20 GBP - which for an antique-starved South African, was an utter bargain sent from decorating/magpie heaven! With its gold leafing and prettiest pink flowers curling with endless elegance around the glass doors, not a single day has gone by that I am not seduced into silently, breathlessly admiring its girly perfection! (I guess you can sense my impending heartache at our parting, hey?)
Item #2: A week or so after Layla was born, Craig arrived home (after some or other little errand he ran so kindly for me on his paternity leave) with a slightly rain-damaged but still salvage-worthy Singer sewing machine table - which became the home for our laptop, speakers, phone and a million other random odds-and-sods.
Item #3: The world's most marvellous easel - which I bought for 110 GBP when I lived in England before - and stored by an even more marvellous friend (even though we have no idea I would ever set foot in England again!) Alas, it will have to find a sunny corner in another artist's studio - and hopefully infuse her with the same magic it gave to me!
Items #4 & #5: one of our local haunts, the Holcot car-boot sale, proffered up weekly treasure hunts for this silly little magpie here - and when she saw these two
incredibly, unbelievably Art Deco mirrors, she ran to the stall (eyes glazed over in gimme-rapture), hardly believing her ears when the kind girl selling them said, "For you - 3 quid. For both." (Actually, I may just leave all my clothes behind -- better to be the madly happy owner of two Art Deco mirrors, I say!) I wonder how many souls these mirrors have captured in their heavy glass? Who were they? What were they thinking? What did they look like?

It's time for bed, and a weekend in which I will try to refine the excited babble in my head into inspiring sound-bytes for my radio interview on Radio 2000's Breakfast Show (8.20am - South African time: *hint, hint*)

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Curl Up & Dye – Part 2


Here's the second half to Curl Up & Dye (i), published at the fabulous iMod!

Curl Up & Dye (ii)

Friday, April 16, 2010

Curl Up & Dye (i)

It's been awhile. Far too damn long in fact. Flu that turned into a clingy lung infection that has left me bereft of energy and even the vaguest flicker of brain power. Luckily for me, antibiotics are powering through my body to kill off those nasties my body could not.
Since I last wrote, I've been trying to get a surprisingly controversial political campaign off the ground, as well as fiddling with my hairstyle. Needless to say, both situations have aggressively pushed the boundaries of both my patience, and my creativity. First off, the campaign. Ho-hum. Where to begin? Well... the responses the campaign received were varied (to be polite), and I found myself on the verge of ditching the whole shebbang in lieu of something less challenging and more likeable. But, a little encouragement here and there from the right people and the show is still on the road. And as for the hair? Ah. Now here's a story that could span a week's worth of blog posts. So, let's start at the very beginning.
Growing up with a mom and dad who had two TOTALLY different attitudes to how women should wear their hair, I am lucky to have been allowed to have had long hair, short hair, red hair, black hair, curly hair and braided hair. My mom herself endured a somewhat horrendous time with her mother's proprietorial relationship with her daughter's hair - so perhaps this is why she consciously allowed me to experiment with my own mop of ordinary, straightish, brown hair. My dad, on the other hand(and like most men), struggled with the idea of my mom's hair being any different to when he first fell in love with her. She was sixteen, gorgeous and crowned with a fall of lustrous, brunette hair that skimmed her perfect waist. So watching my dad's facial muscles twitch and jive in disappointment whenever my mom had a new haircut taught me about how much value men place on their women's hair as a sort of symbol and memorial of the very first ignition of love and her youthful beauty. (One need only look at the power of long blonde tresses over a man's mind/nether regions to agree that hair is a powerful sexual signifier compared to a woman sporting a short brunette crop.) In my first serious relationship, I suffered debilitating punishments for daring to cut or dye my hair - so that when I finally managed to leave the bugger, I relished the freedom that now lay before me in glint of the hairdresser's scissors and the shelves and shelves of Clairol, Garnier and L'Oreal. At 28 I dyed my long hair raven black, and waltzed around the bars and cafes of Cape Town in heels and lipgloss and men's stares. After too many strange encounters with weird and not-so-wonderful men, I made the decision that my long hair screamed 'come hither' too loudly, and in a bid to express myself more specifically as a bohemian, funky, not-that-available soul, I designed a bob-length hairstyle that somehow managed to be both punk/rock and yet, deliciously, mysteriously feminine. And... this is when Craig discovered me. Almost three years later, and this darling man continues on his gently persuasive quest to get me to cut and dye my hair like that. His smittenness with me in those early days, especially with my hair, convinced me that here was a man (FINALLY!) who would find me irresistable in any sort of hairstyle. But alas, he too is just a mere man - and so adheres to that rule of all husbands who treasure the erotic memory of their wife's hair when they first laid eyes on each other. (*sigh*)
(It is suddenly desperately late - so I will have to write more tomorrow... Adios, in the meantime.)

Friday, April 2, 2010

Prison Break...


It's been awhile (too long, actually) since I was last able to write. Dratted flu. But a temporary, yet nontheless magnificent hiatus, has granted me some time to write. A reprieve. How? I made the somewhat reckless decision yesterday to drive down from Northampton to Portsmouth to spend a few days with an old friend - a friend I am too afraid to admit I may never see again what with our impending move back to South Africa. Hence the hasty heart-over-head decision. The story of the car journey I shall leave for another day, fraught, as it was, with exhaustion, error and frantic despair. (Ha, the drama queen strikes again!)

The flu Craig has so generously shared with me, and now Layla, was one of the worst I can ever remember. And I've been praying under my breath that mother's prayer of, "Please don't let my child get sick...Please, please..." But by yesterday afternoon, her smooth, pale forehead began to burn with the fever I've been dreading all week. All through the night, I checked her temperature, hoping my faithfulness and fretful diligence would abolish the fever like medicine, or a talisman. But this morning, her little body had stolen the fever from her forehead and her eyes shone with the flu. She is coughing the same cough as me now. (What pisses me off is that my darling other half has already told me that if she gets the flu it'll be my fault. And as irrational as it is to believe such a claom from someone who had the same flu and was in as much proximity to his daughter as me, I feel shittily guilty. Condemned, somehow. Guilt seems to be a mother's lot. And it's something we need to fight as mothers. It will drag us down so that we will not be able to make proper sense of our children and ourselves. This guilt will blind us. This guilt causes us to lose sight of the whole 'me' that is indelibly important for our children to see. We cannot love properly if we have forgotten who we are.) Sheesh - this is pretty damn heavy for such a lovely, lazy Friday morning!!

The point I wanted to make was that I realised how my love for Layla has slipped into a form of suffocating control. As I lay next to her in bed this morning as she napped, my heart clenched shut in prayer yet again, yet the clarity that slapped me back said that I could not hope and pray my child's painless way through her life. Besides it being impossible to protect her from every illness and sadness, it was also wrong. In fact, I would go so far as to say it is actually unloving for me to entrap her inside my love. My love should be her fortress, not her prison. She should be the princess of the bastion of my heart where she can come and go, free. I'm ashamed to look back over the last year to see how I have so blindly made her the prisoner of my mother's heart.

And so, as I watch her cough or feel her cries from the aching fever tear my heart, I consciously choose to be there for her, to comfort her and meet her needs lovingly - but no more. I choose to confront the guilt as a mere imaginary spectre, and to replace it with rational love that sets my child free to grow into herself, and into her life. (And, can I just say, thank GOODNESS for Baby Nurofen!)

Monday, March 22, 2010

Jacky D Ice-Cream!!


Tjoep-stil in her car seat next me (she fell asleep taking her papa to work), I am trying to get in as many words as I can before duty calls. (And believe you me, 'duty' is very vocal and shockingly eloquent for someone who can only say mama, woof, miaow and moo!) Craig's on a school trip for the next couple of days in some unnamed forest past Leicester - so while the mouse is away, the cat will play! lol! Having the car and all its exquisite freedoms means that during the day Layla and I can jol to our heart's content - and in the evening, I've got quiet little dinner parties planned. (Truth be told, I'm just exaggerating. There's nothing at all glam about the simple suppers I've organised, seeing as it's the end of an unusually frugal month - but the company will certainly be juicy! Wendy, Dinee and Adam: I'm talkin' about YOU! *wink*)

Somehow, my circumstances have always dictated that I be an absolute queen of the quandary: i.e. how can I turn my apparently half-empty cup into, not sommer a half-full cup, but one which overflows in magical, beautiful abundance? My example for today is the fact that my larder is all but bare - and I simply cannot journey through the night with my friends without the perfect ending of a fabulous pudding! So, lying far too wide awake for the hour last night thanks to the first cup of caffeinated coffee I've had in more than two years, I conjured up what I hope will be a concoction I can keep for the recipe book I'm writing. Right - here's how I'm going to make it:

1. In my pretty-pretty pink porcelain (1920s) bowl, I'll dribble a deep swig or two of Jack Daniels - and into it I'll add a generous handful of raisins and honey. (I'm not much of a believer in precise measurements of any kind, so play around with the amounts according to your specific predilection: i.e. boozy, fruity or super-duper sweet.) Allow the raisins to soak all day long... all the flavours mingling into a new deliciousness you've never tasted before.
2. Soften what's left of the vanilla ice-cream by leaving it to defrost a little without being tempted to eat any of it. (Okay, maybe just two wee spoonfuls?)
3. Fold the raisins and the whiskey/honey into the softened ice-cream. Return to the freezer until as soon as possible after dinner. (I have never been able to wait very long for dessert...)

Still in my cozy jarmies after yesterday's London adventure, I'm going to skip all the housework and other mundanities in favour of following up on the exciting contacts I made yesterday and, sjoe, getting as much writing done as I can! Sooooo many stories to tell...........................

Friday, March 19, 2010

A Lighter Shade of Pale {green...}

[This post originated at iMod.]

Trying to live in this murky limbo of packing up means that my house feels like just that: a house. A topsy-turvy shell which feels empty - bereft of the care and attention to detail that is my signature (and somewhat bohemian) style. Ag ja - 'bohemian' is such a cliche these days, but it perfectly defines everything about me with its connotations of nomadic romance... And actually, I'm going to ditch the original thing I was going to write about, and tell you instead about how I have come to find myself in all the colours of the rainbow where I once lost who I was in a depthless pool of black.

I hardly ever talk about it now, but like a jagged, keloided-over scar the remaining evidence of a previous violence, I was married before. Yip, I'm a remarried divorcee. My ex-husband has also recently remarried - but that, my friends, is another story I'll have to leave for another day... Anyway, before my 15 year old self met him, my personal style was already um, rather quirky. My mom indulged me endlessly, sewing up all my own sketched designs with that particular brand of joy that only mommies can feel as they watch their daughters becoming young women. One of these dresses, which so reflected my undying passion for the 1960s and '70s, was a black ankle-length, empire-line maxi-dress - with wide bell sleeves, all trimmed with flowery braid chosen from my mom's stash of vintage ribbons I could spend hours rummaging through - brain amok with fashion fantasies! (Don't even get me started on her chocolate box of sequins and beads... Ooh la la!) If only I could remember what shoes I wore with this dress... Another outfit combination I wore with happily rebellious pride and which made my poor dad visibly cringe when I was with him in public, was my knee-length floral skirt in a reddish granny print chiffon (also devotedly made by my mom as per my instructions), worn with a t-shirt, a cream cardigan I was very sentimentally attached to and which I tied round my hips thereby ruining it into overstretched oblivion forever, and on my feet: my mom's hyper-chunky, heavy-as-hell Italian hiking boots. (This was before I was bought those iconically grunge/punk boots: Doc Martens!) And then, ahem, there is the matter of my hair. My sweet mama let me dye it a ludicrously cheap red tinge - which I just loved for how it made me feel (no matter that it was completely the wrong tone for my skin!) Of course, let me not forget my ultimate style accessory I have never been able to live without since I was eleven: lip-gloss. Due to an unexplainable addiction and the fact that I lick my lips perpetually, especially when concentrating, I make VERY sure I have a variety of tubes in my immediate vicinity at all times: whether it's paddling down the Orange River, writing a particularly strenuous exam essay, or - more recently - giving birth! (While I was changing Layla's nappy this morning, I noticed her carefully watching me while she licked her lips back and forth -- and I realised she was copying me! Noooooo!!! Is my child doomed to inherit my lip issues?!)

So before I met The Ex, I was radically exuberant in how I chose to express myself through colour and style. My Ex, however, came from a creepily conservative Rondebosch family, and I found myself toning things down by self-conscious degrees, so that by the end of the second year, I was a boring clone of all that is mediocre and 'normal'. A couple of years later, and I was suddenly swathed in black, black and more black. My excuse was that it fit my art student persona and my budget: i.e. everything matched! But looking back, I can see I'd lost the ability to be myself, and I was drowning, slowly and somehow defiantly, in this relationship - and black was the colour of my heart then: I couldn't see the light I craved through this pressing, suffocating thing I believed was love.
Here is another story about the way in which colour can so magically diagnose maladies of the heart. My sister, Mandy, had a particularly unique and vivacious relationship with colour - and bucked the trend, as she continues to do now, by replacing the predictable norm of blue skies, yellow sun and green grass with audacious choices of orange, purple and zingy pink! Until... she, out of the blue, replaced it all with harsh scribblings of black. Alarm bells rang for my mom who dashed off to the school to investigate. Turns out the teacher was exasperatedly trying to teach this left-handed child to be right-handed -- by smacking her errant left hand with a ruler!

My wearing black as a young woman continued unabated, broken only by the odd colourful garment. Even my paintings became drained of colour, and I chose only to work in graphite, black and shades of sepia. Even until about two years ago. One of the most notable things about colour choice, in my wardrobe and art, was that I never, ever used green. It was only once I managed to leave The Ex and return to Cape Town, that I suddenly started to add green to my life: from the sophisticatedly sombre tones of olive all the way through to the most fanatical of lime! I'd always been extremely aware of the fact that I'd never been a 'green' fan - but never quite grasped why... until I began incorporating it into my personal pallette. At the time, I was working (and playing!) as the art director for a nationwide fashion house and, in my trendforecasting analysis, discovered this intriguing snippet of enlightening info: people haunted by depression exclude the use of green in their personal expression, be it art, interiors or fashion. Wow! (to say the least.) It all made so much sense in retrospect, didn't it?

Needless to say, every inconceivable shade of green can be spotted in my life now - and that says a lot, hey? (*wink*)

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Write Yourself Sane/Happy/Free!!

Dark and grey, the clouds outside promise rain I wish I could parcel up to send back to South Africa - especially to Grahamstown where there have even been umbrella-email prayer requests for rain. (No pun on 'umbrella' intended...) Perhaps, and with frantic hope beating in my chest, spring might come early this year!

This week is going to see me writing the following:
1. My first article for iMod.
2. Setting up my new food blog (hmmm... going to keep you guessing!)
3. Writing my first magazine article for actual submission - which means, potentially, actual rejection. But I feel strong enough to understand this as an inevitable part of the process of writing/being published. And so, with all this fabulousness planned, let's just hope Lady Time will be kind to me!

Something I've learned about writing and blogging in the last two weeks has been this: it pays to be opinionated and brutally original. This I discovered after checking out all the winning blogs in various countries. And to be honest - some of them were quite, quite crap! But that's besides the point. The point is this: it is simply not worth your time and creative energy to be a nice fence-sitter. (Hours and hours pass, during which I cuddle, soothe and sing to HRM, tugging at her ears and yelping at random moments from what can only be teething pain...) Since I managed to jot down those last few words, I received the most fabulous surprise in my inbox: the production editor for The South African invited me to write an article for their Homecoming section! I was so flipping excited that I IMMEDIATELY forwarded the email to my mom and dad -- but refrained, this time, from slathering it all over my Facebook. But how absolutely fantastic is THAT?! (Maybe now even I can donate towards my own Netbook Fund!!

When I first started writing, I wouldn't even have called it that. Writing seemed like such a lofty, elite pursuit - whilst all I did was scrawl out my angst in longhand, recording everything from ideas for paintings to grocery lists. Behind this tedious but magical daily act is the idea, explained by Julia Cameron in The Artist's Way, that these 'Morning Pages' (three A4 pages written out in longhand each morning) help us show ourselves the way when we're feeling lost. They also help us resolve inner and outer conflicts. They suggest solutions to all sorts of problems, whether practical or metaphysical. For me, one of the most miraculous benefits was that it helped me to find myself. To hear my truest voice above all the din and racket of my 'critics' (i.e. I'd allowed all sorts people to inhabit my head/heart-space: from my aggressively petty high-school art teacher to critical (jealous) friends.) Writing also helped me to survive an abusive marriage - and, in the end, escape! Louise de Salvo has gathered together an enormous amount of data proving the thesis that writing heals - and not merely psychologically, but physically as well. De Salvo, mind you, postulates that it is a certain kind of writing that has this effect. Merely bitching about your cranky mother-in-law day after day is not the kind of writing that heals!! Whilst describing the facts of a negative/destructive moment, one needs to tell it with a strongly narrative logic, as well as attaching your emotions to the facts. Anyway, I'm blathering - and it took me three days to write this post (!!) so I am going to take a bit of a breather and treat myself to another Julia Cameron trick: an Artist Date - to fill up the gaping morass from which I pour forth myself into my writing (oh, so dramatic!) and firstly, have a two-hour, lazy midday nap with LaylaRose, and then read some Ted Hughes poetry inbetween entertaining HRM with nursery rhymes and kisses!

Monday, March 8, 2010

Aphro*dizzy*ac!

Ooh la la! I'm a lucky girl -- with VERY generous friends, it seems! My Netbook Fund has risen dramatically in the last few days, as you can see on the thermometor chart on the right ;) How fabulously exciting!! (And may I say a gracious and delighted 'thank you' to Melanie Charlton and Anne Herbert for their kindess and endless encouragement!) And because I get such incredible support (and sometimes the odd kick-up-the-jack!) my writing has grown from a very meek little blog to an actual career! As yet, I am still unpaid as a writer - but at least I have been published in four separate places in the last two weeks.
1. The MyZA editor discovered my Soutpiel blog - and featured me in his editorial!
2. Homecoming Revolution thought my blog was juicy enough to make me one of their 11 official bloggers!
3. SA Blog Award-winning Cape Town blog, iMod, has just made me one of their writers where I'll be submitting an article every Monday - writing about my own brand of what it means to be a mother, sprinkled with sexy recipes (more about that just now) and the odd book review.
4. South Africa The Good News has featured my blog this week on their front page!


But before I launch into something so glaringly trivial as 'sexy recipes', I must just tell you that my heart is still leaden, paralysed ... the shock and confusion and despair of my friend's baby that died on Saturday... wondering, at each moment of my day, what my dear friend must be going through. Suddenly, Layla waking through night for feeding is a pathetically petty problem. Rephrase: It is no longer a problem. It is a blessing. (I don't want to cheapen her pain by writing any more about it...)

So - something happily trivial to distract us: Sexy Food. What is Sexy Food? Sexy Food is nourishment, not just for the hungers of the body - but for those particular cravings of the soul. In short, it is about desire.
An example would be the smoked salmon linguine I made for us on Friday night. Hmmm... Part of what made it 'Sexy Food' for me was the tumbling of passion memories as I read through the ingredients-list and remembered sharing a smoked salmon pizza, at the bare end of the month, with Craig - when we still lived in Blouberg. The late summer sun, sumptuously gold as it poured softly through the restaurant, and the red wine we sipped like mirrors of each other... I'd never had smoked salmon before, but Craig magicked me into an adventurer - and the carnal coming together (no pun intended) of the salmon flesh, the creamy creme fraishe and the slow burn of the spring onion felt like I was eating sex. (Mommy, for the sake of my writing career, I hope you are not blushing for shame?! lol) But anyway - remembering all those gorgeous textures and feelings made reading the salmon pasta recipe rather like accidently finding the most deliciously aphrodisiac erotica - in my kitchen! It's a perfect pairing, if you think about it: food and sex. All your appetites satisfied in one go! And really, eating together is the perfect foreplay for us as women: our minds and our senses are tantalised over a couple of luxurious hours (instead of a few roughshod minutes having our nipples twiddled like radio dials!) Even gathering the ingredients together on the kitchen counter, and setting the butter to melt in the pan was like ... well, do you really want to know? It was like laying out, for after your steamy, steamy bath, that favourite black lace bra, to go with that outrageously naughty thong you hide at the back of your drawer... Hmmm... Anyway - I am going to write my recipe book about this Sexy Food - though I need to conjure up a more beautiful name - as 'Sexy Food' reminds me too much of Borat/Bruno and his 'sexy-time'...

Thursday, March 4, 2010

All I Want for Christmas (in July!!) Is.....

Layla's molar-teething calmed in the night to allow us both a decent night's sleep - and today I have found a little bit of time to gather my thoughts after two weeks' worth of insanity. As I type, Layla sleeps upstairs, cocooned in a blanket our neighbour gave us when she was born. She is, physically, a petite little thing - still wearing 0 - 6 month clothes! What is NOT petite, however, is her personality - or her appetite for my undivided attention... When she's not teething, she can happily entertain herself for 30 minutes at a time - and then all she needs is a quick cuddle, some milk or a snack. But when she's teething? Oh dear... even putting her down on the ground amidst her mountains of toys automatically pushes her yelp/wail/screech button!

(Hours pass - and my irritability levels rise with no respite from the ceaseless demands of HRM.)

Craig arrived home at 8pm (19 minutes ago) and even though he's had a despicably long day at work, I beg him to please take our child off to bed so I can find a few moments to gather myself - and what remains of my sanity. (So if nothing makes sense, that's why!) On my last Soutpiel post, I received a tongue-lashing for writing such a short post - so here goes: let's hope I have enough time to write something worth sinking your teeth into ;)

Having recently read Julie & Julia, I've been inspired to do four things:
1. Write, write and write some more!
2. Get stuck into that recipe book that's been begging to be set free since I first annoyed my sister's high school Home Economics ethics with my butternut, feta and calamata olives idea!
3. Do as Julie Powell did by adding a 'donate' button to her blog/ (More about that in a moment.)
4. Recommend that you watch the film - but maybe skip the book. The deeper I got into the book, the more I disliked Julie Powell. With a toddleresque penchant for tantrums and something I can't quite put my finger on (selfishness? her revolting, cat-hairy housekeeping habits? the way she treats her devoted husband?) I almost wish I hadn't read the book at all... but the redeeming factors were that I found it a fabulous boost as a writer ("if she can do it, so can I") and also that I discovered Julia Child! Her memoirs about her life in Paris is definitely a book I'm putting on my birthday wish list - though perhaps not so her recipe books filled with too many recipes calling for boiling calves hooves down into aspic. (Blech!)

Anyway, to get back to Point #3. What with trying to launch myself into a freelance writing career, parallel to being Layla's adoring mommy, I haven't got a spare moment to earn the 250GBP I need to buy myself a netbook. Other thoughts I had were to take on a Saturday or a Sunday job, but Craig has to often work on one or both days of the weekend. So apart from having added Google ads to my blog, which earns me 1p a click, it seems impossible for me to get that kind of money together before we fly home to South Africa. (Once we're home, there will be no extra cash at all while we set up home all over again - and laptops are muchos expensive back home.) So... I am hoping that even if little amounts of even 50p get donated, that by the time June rolls around, I might be able to afford the new little laptop I need to keep my writing career flourishing! The laptop I'm currently writing on is beginning to show the feebleness of old-age... It is four years old - a relic from my divorce where all I got was my diamond ring: a nicely massive rock of champagne diamond ovalness, held in a platinum setting of little leaves and other pretty antique-style detailing -- all of my own design, and much lusted after by many a wandering woman's eye! Though it was valued at R42 000, my hunger to be free of the controlling mania of my ex-husband, I asked my dad to sell it for me on the Land Cuiser forum! Ha! Vengeance is mine, saith Lisa. The long and the short of it is that I got just enough money for it to buy myself a laptop. This laptop. It has been a lifesaver in so many ways... I was able to write myself out of a very dark, frightening depression. And while we've been living so far away from our families, it meant that we have been able to 'see' our moms and dads whenever we felt like it. And, most preciously, it meant that Layla and her late Granny Sally could meet - if only via the slightly murky magic of Skype. But the two of them shared a miraculous bond... to see the two of them talking to each, sunny with smiles and laughter, is a memory I take out every so often and shine with care and love.

Craig is back downstairs and it's time for me to be his wife, his friend, his Lisa, for awhile - so let me bid you the sweetest goodnight. Adieu, adieu, adieu, my friends!

PS. I found Julie Powell's original blog dating from 2002 - here is the link: http://blogs.salon.com/0001399/

Saturday, February 20, 2010

BOOBY TRAP!

This is the sms that I got last night from a like-bosomed friend: "Do you want to come bra shopping tomorrow afternoon? My bra situation is so dire that my babylons need a proper harness or they'll walk away all by themselves!"

Backwards and forwards went the sms's, plans to FINALLY visit Bravissimo in Milton Keynes made in an ecstasy of hope - that at long last my boobs would no longer be the victims of senseless gravitational tragedy! The Plan: meet at Anne's house around 12pm. Drive to Northampton Station. Park. Catch the train to Milton Keynes. Shop for the ultimate in breast elevation and perkification.

However... Another couple of icy inches of snow fell in the wee hours of the morning, making any sort of travel, other than by slow, careful walking in thick woolly socks and gumboots, dangerous. Damnit!! My euphoria was replaced by terrifying visions of my exponentially slumping mammaries dangling about my knees because they'd have to endure another agonising week minus appropriate buttressing! The irony of it all is that I have the boobs my 13 year old self wished for. (NEVER wish upon a star, ladies!!) I used to look down at my small little chest mounds, for they could never have been called 'breasts' - and compare them to my mom's boobs. Hers looked like real boobs. I wanted mine to have that fold underneath. That fold that we all now know means our boobs have lost their pert youth and are now officially 'saggy'. Anyway, my chest continued to blossom, thanks to my rollercoastering hormones (and moods!) and by the time I was 18, I happily ran around campus in bra-less 34B perfection, with not a worry in the world about that thing called Gravity. By my fourth year at uni, my maternal grandmother's genes began to make themselves known in a sudden boob-boom: and a bra-fitting at La Senza confirmed a size increase to a D-cup. All men and smaller-chested women think that the 'D' stands for delicious, divine, decadent and desirous. But the dire truth is that it denotes drooping, discomfort, distress and doom. And I think of these bizarre documentaries following the cosmetic journey of women who have bigger and bouncier balloons of silicone sutured into their chests in a quest for, let's be honest: love. 'Love' for which they pay the coin of sex for. When I think of the issues my large-ish bosoms have irritated me with, I wonder at the ugly desperation behind these Frankensteinian boob-jobbed ladies... at what has driven them to covet male sexual attention so obsessively.

Before my soapbox collapses, let me define why I said the 'D' in 34D was so disastrous.
1. "drooping": Real D-cup breasts are heavy. Like two lumps of rump-steak 'heavy'. And this means gravity loves them more than you do! Admittedly, the droop was never quite as disastrous as the excessive dangling of the post-pregnancy F-cups I now drag around with me... I am looking for a bra that will give my bazoombies such a fabulous boost that my waist will once again be visible! (Yip, so when I said they drooped, I wasn't exaggerating.)
2. "discomfort": Big boobs in summer are hell on earth. Hot, sweaty and not at all sexy. Also, think about the muscles in your constantly aching back that must compensate for carrying what can be likened to lugging a large, rock-filled Gucci tote on your chest!
3. "distress": Many eyes become glued to your mamilla in public - whether you like it or not. (I don't.) Lewd, watering old men's eyes. Furtive, horny other-women's husbands' eyes. Angry, jealous women's eyes. (With reference again to our surgically busty bimbos, they remind me of naughty toddlers: any attention is good attention.)
4. "doom": Lastly, massive mammary glands = lingerie that is more armour-plate, octogenarian, elasticized contraption than lacy sweet-nothings that'll melt your man straight into a swoon. Quite frankly, I feel doomed to forever be confined in mammoth-cupped unsexiness. My last three bra purchases testify to this apocalyptic sense of catastrophe: none of them, though the correct size of 38F, gave my boobs a shape that looked or felt good. Each set of bras were returned by gloomy ol' me. But...

There IS hope! Bravissimo! Every woman in my boat who carries extra buoyancy (wink, wink) and shops at Bravissimo testify they will not shop ANYWHERE else for their brassieres! Besides the fact that you will be professionally fitted, the actual product is apparently outrageously gorgeous and of impeccable quality. And so, with a date set for Sunday to go bra-shopping at Bravissimo, I look forward to telling you all the juicy details and sharing with you my renewed sense of Lisa!

As a kind of (very important) PS, I must mention that although I have bitched and moaned about my breasts, I am deeply thankful for the fact that I even have breasts. Watching a program on TV the other night about a woman who had her breasts reconstructed after a brutal mastectomy and the emotional agony she suffered between the two operations, reminded me of how gloriously beautiful our breasts are in any shape or size -- and how miraculous in their function of so perfectly nourishing, hydrating and soothing our babies. Viva Les Boobies!

Friday, February 19, 2010

The Shape of a Mother

With Layla's first birthday in 6 days' time, it is with amazement that I've watched her sleep cycles change like clockwork from the newborn's every-45-minutes to the 12 month old's one midday-nap. She's been awake for 8 hours now, and upstairs, Craig's muted voice singing her to sleep carries gently down to me, reminding me of how precious and sweet is life. Initially I grabbed the laptop to write my encounter with a particularly complicated Benagli aubergine recipe and its curdled outcome, but I got sidetracked (what's new?!) and found a website, Juxatapoz, about artists working from the expat perspective. I guess this post should actually be on my Soutpiel blog, but what the heck?! (After asking Craig for a drop more vino or a cup of rooibos, I can hear from the tinkling of a stirring spoon that he decided I needed the tea!) Oh bugger - and now one of my favourite TV shows is coming on... What to do?! OK, I'll add to this tomorrow.

..................Yesterday, researching different ways to promote my blog and increase my readership, I discovered this thing called 'blog carnivals'. My addled mommy's-brain couldn't quite wrap itself around all the technicalities of getting it set up, so I've cancelled my account. I'm finding it critical, these (Layla-filled) days, to keep everything as simple as possible. Perhaps it is better to have quality of readership than quantity. (You're nodding your head in agreement, aren't you?) Do any of you have any recommendations re: my buying a netbook? Being interrupted for others to use my current laptop is driving me absolutely bloody bananas! Another thing is that it's not as portable as a netbook is, and this laptop's battery is maar 'n bietjie pap. Should I be wary of 'refurbished' ones on eBay? Other than feeling incredibly irritated that I don't have free reign on MY laptop, I am happily pottering around with a number of creative projects, one of which is a crocheted oval rug made from old t-shirts. Another is the revamping of my current wardrobe because I am still living that fabulous maxim of 'BE MORE, DON'T BUY MORE' (because even if I wanted to, I couldn't buy more!) and also because this new motherly body of mine has different needs in terms of coverage, accessibility, stain resistance/camouflage etc.

Oh well... that was a pretty blah blog entry... Something more juicy tomorrow, I promise :)

Friday, February 12, 2010

Touched With Fire...

Layla has gone down for her second nap of the day. And I am deeply peeved that I cannot seem to gain the upperhand in the fight for control over my domestic bliss!! It always seems like an uphill battle. Maybe I need to stop, breathe and simply make peace with the vaguely chaotic set-up I call 'my house'. The truth of the matter is that I am not married to Mr Perfect (but who the hell is?!) AND there is a little miracle of a person whose needs are much more important to me than achieving domestic-goddess status. Admittedly, Craig is becoming more and more marvellous in his attempts to keep my house-rants at bay: i.e. making the bed as many mornings as a non-morning person can manage, and sms-ing me on the days he couldn't to say he was sorry. And so, this journey towards domestic/familial enlightenment wends its twisting, winding way closer towards the light of peace and understanding. (Why would I want to be a wife who spends more time bitching at her husband for mundane trivialities instead of building him up with kind, loving words? I have DEFINITELY noticed the difference in the quality of our togetherness when I focus on the latter. A HUGE difference. Fact 1: a generous, gentle, funny man can be turned, in the space of a single, embittered accusation about housework, into a sulking, hurt little boy. Fact 2: this makes me even more critical. Fact 3: this makes him even more defensive and sulky.... And on it goes.)

So, though the dishes may not all be neatly stacked away, and the countertops flawless in disinfected cleanliness and tidiness, we have sufficient dishes to cook dinner for ourselves and our dinner guests. And though the lounge is strewn with all manner of Layla's toys, it is a happy mess with plenty of space on the two sofas for everyone to chill out on a cold Friday night with a delightfully yummy plate of food on their laps. (i.e. Bengali aubergines (in garlic and cumin-scented yoghurt) and lamb kebabs --- and hopefully, some red wine which I am praying Craig will remember to pick up on his way home from his last day at school before a week-long break. Pinotage or Shiraz, please!)



On a less exuberant note, I am devastated by the news that Alexander McQueen committed suicide yesterday. I'd never heard a peep about him struggling in any sort of way... but hearing about his mom dying a few days before helped the penny to drop. Often, artists of great genius are prone towards bi-polar depression - which is a common denominator in most suicides. A brilliant book to read on this subject, actually written by a psychiatrist, is "Touched with Fire". I read it a few years ago and was so touched by the obvious, tenderly told truth - especially as it helped me to understand my own cyclothemia and my ups and downs. (I'm not saying I am AT ALL a 'creative genius' like Beethoven! It is just that many creatives suffer with varying degrees of emotional roller-coastering. The author of said book explains how the bleak lows are vitally important as part of the creative cycle - actually 'feeding' the artist before a 'high' hits. Being able to change my perspective on my darker days to this has been a lifesaver. In every sense of the word.) But going back to the genius-tailor/designer, Alexander McQueen, he must have had a devastatingly close relationship with his mother for it to have so broken his heart. He had a big collection due for showing at the beginning of March, and perhaps this pressure, coupled with his mother's passing, was just too much for him. Rest in peace, Alexander. I hope you are with your mother.

PS. Please don't forget to vote at the bottom tick-boxes! And, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE leave a comment or three :) You have NO IDEA what it means to me!!!!!

Monday, February 8, 2010

Breaking News: Laziness Cured By Nap!

Today is one of those days. You know those days when you feel blah about absolutely everything? I don't feel like doing anything - not even making myself a cup of (yes, sugarless) rooibos tea. I don't even know why.

The snow storm from America has hit us, and that little journey on foot to the village post office no longer seems like a possibility. Soft, white and flossy, the snow looks deceptively gentle: until you open the door and step out into it. Then it bites you. Bitterly, and with vengeance. Nope - I'm not going to bother going out there AT ALL today. But how am I going to cure this lethargic ennui that has paused me in my tracks as if I were an interrupted song?

More than anything, I think, is this sense of being overcome with exhaustion in my body. My blood feels thick, dark and heavy in my veins, and my brain is certainly not firing on all cylinders: my perception feels distorted and vague, like I am viewing life down blurry, back-to-front binoculars. Oxygen and endorphins created by exercise could definitely help. But hell, I am just not in the mood. You wouldn't be either, so don't point your finger at me, ok?! (Sheesh - add 'paranoid' to the list as well then.) But anyway, getting back to why I think I feel like this can be put down to the fact that I didn't get enough rest on the weekend. With Craig at home, I try and take complete and utter advantage of the fact that I have a babysitter I don't have to pay but can emotionally blackmail with things like, "Oh, so you don't want to spend any time with you daughter then? Nice one, Craig. Nice." But my poor little Pudding-Pie struggled with teething all weekend... This time, it's her molars. Has any medical professional ever been able to measure the extent of the pain our little ones go through due to teething? My mom says that by the time I was 15 months old, all my teeth had come through. Maybe Layla will suffer the same fate?

................. as is to be expected, I was interrupted (maybe I should change my blog name to 'Girl, Interrupted') by needing to put Layla down for a nap, the Tesco delivery guy being unusually exuberant and the never-to-be-missed opportunity to ask 'Is that a South African accent?' followed by the usual questions regarding the weather, crime, blah blah blah -- which woke Layla 20minutes into her nap. Bugger. With my groceries sitting and defrosting in the limbo of the passage, I climbed into bed with my baby while nursing her back to sleep. Two hours later, and I feel FABULOUS, darling! That was all I needed: a bit of extra sleep. Now I feel ready to conquer the world (and that toppling pile of clean laundry to be folded)! Also on the Domestic Goddess Cards, is
1. Roast that Butter & Herb chicken - then divide the cooked meat into small portions for Layla to have through the week with meals or snacktime. (She needs more protein and fat in her diet.)
2. Continue to try and solve the increasingly irritating riddle of why my .avi files won't write to CD...
3. Get dinner on the go: Bengali aubergines in yoghurt, served with lamb kebabs. (Packing my groceries away, I spied a lonely garlic clove in its antique pink bowl next to the olive oil, sea salt and black pepper grinder. How, oh how am I POSSIBLY going to get through the week with only ONE garlic clove??? PANIC STATIONS!! I'll have to ring Ang down the road to see if she has any to share!)
4. Have a bath with Layla (while I pray that this dratted snow stops before it causes the mad mayhem of previous occassions!)

Friday, January 29, 2010

Part 2: Chubby and Proud!

Back to that quote I mentioned:
What is healing but a change in perspective?
The change in perspective I had was this: I realised the deep hurt I carried around because I never felt thin enough was something that had to go. It was too heavy a load to bear - and besides, I have Layla to consider: her own health and self-esteem/body-image. If she saw me cringing, year in and year out, in front of the mirror and constantly whining about my body, it could only have a negative impact on her.

My glorious days as a 28 year old single woman (I nearly said 'girl'!) and how fabulous I felt about every inch of myself shone deliciously in my heart and I realised it did not merely have to be a memory, but that I could make it a reality again (minus the singleton status, of course!) What caused me to head back down this bleakly treacherous path after such a fabulous blooming? Motherhood. I hate to admit it, but being pregnant and a new mom was devastatingly different to how I had always imagined it would be. And, I think that maybe I may have even been angry with my body for betraying me during the birth of my child: firstly, having to be induced with Sintocinon because Layla was in distress and had literally shat herself in fright, and then not dilating more than 2cm and hearing my as yet unborn child's heart stop and having to be rushed into surgery for an emergency C-section.
My pregnancy saw me carrying huge amounts of water - both in my womb and in my body, with once-petite ankles as swollen and shapeless as an elephant. (I was actually going to reference my late Norwegian great-aunt again and her lace-up shoes over which her ankles bulged, but felt a bit guilty. The necessity to accurately portray the immense fatness of my ankles prevailed, I'm afraid...) At 5 weeks, I glibly announced to the world that it seemed as if the morning-sickness curse had passed me by, but come Week # 6 and I was cuddling that toilet like there was no tomorrow! The GP announced his complete conviction that I was carrying twins. (I didn't tell him how, since I was a little girl, I had always prayed to not EVER be 'blessed' with them! Apologies to my identical twin sisters, Mandy and Julie.) I proceeded to vomit all the way through my pregnancy, having to dash out during teaching, or - most memorably, having to frantically stop the car on the side of the road in Milton Keynes on my way to do nursery shopping at IKEA to cover my boots and jeans in the peach yoghurt I'd just eaten to quell the nausea! Driving past the white-washed spot on my way back, I can actually remember my cheeks burning with humiliation!

(Sheesh, I DO get distracted, don't I?) My hands were so bloated that I couldn't wear my engagement ring - or any rings, for that matter! And none of my pretty pumps fitted my feet. Most disappointing? Asking Craig to please pick up a pack of size 16 panties at Tesco because - well, it's obvious, isn't it?! Boobs I could proudly flaunt at 34DD ballooned into 38F monstrosities, complete with wildly itchy skin, bright blue veining and, quite literally, a life of their own. (Lunchtime - time to feed my precious Layla something yummy! Part 3 coming soon: I know I got sidetracked again - but I've got to keep you hooked and coming back more, don't I?!)

Monday, January 25, 2010

Chubby and Proud!





My sugar-less (to clarify: the 'less' signifies I am ingesting less sugar as opposed to a sugarless diet: how could I never have another chocolate or bowl of Ben & Jerry's?!) diet is going fabulously: there is definitely something to be said for the marvels of moderation! I can't quite remember just who said it, but this quote expresses more succinctly what has happened to me in the last month than I could ever attempt:
What is healing but a change in perspective?

Being 'chubby' has haunted my eating days since I was ten years old. Pretty young, huh? I think it was the school nurse (a short and - rather ironically - rotund old woman with short grey hair and the wrinkliest face I'd ever seen on anyone except my Norwegian great-aunt) who suggested my mom haul me off to a dietician ASAP. Looking at photos of myself at that age now, I am deeply angry that I was deemed even vaguely overweight. Certainly, I was not blessed with a beanpole physique and a skyrocketing metabolism, but my body was cute and round and healthy. The usual ball-oriented sports at school like netball and tennis saw me cursed with butterfingers and bored to tears - and I often managed to almost-legally bunk all my Phys Ed classes from primary to high school by needing to practice my flute (wink, wink.) Climbing trees didn't suit me much either: my twin sisters would chatter with not-too-subtle glee at my mom having to fetch the ladder to get me out the high arms of the leafy avo tree in our back garden. (I could climb up - it was the getting down that didn't agree with me.) Another moment of humiliation? Slipping clumsily off the rocks we were using to cross an almost torrential river while hiking in the Cape mountains while my sisters nimbly hotfooted it across and my dad calling me his 'little mountain deer'. Yes, he was being sarcastic. But besides these sorts of incapabilities, I was an excellent little sailor - representing South Africa when I was a mere 13 years old at the Mirror World Championships in Holland! And for you of you who have never sailed a dinghy in the famous South Easter - it is blerry hard work: you need to be fit and super-strong! So ball-sports aside (and river-rock-hopping), I wasn't an unhealthily slothful child at all. I simply preferred stretching my brain muscles to other muscles; 2 to 3 hours a day was a normal amount of time for me to spend practising my flute, for example.

Provitas skimmed with a mere lick of marge, and carefully dolloped with exactly measured-by-grams fat-free cottage cheese and early morning jogs in the dark before school were my punishment for having a body that wasn't supermodelesque. It didn't stop there either - I continued to punish myself for not being thin until about two years ago when I finally managed to leave my exercise-obsessed, fat-free fanatic ex who certainly didn't help me accept myself for who I was. Before I met my husband, I enjoyed two glorious years of unadulterated glory in the eyes of quite a number of delicious young men who unabashedly adored my healthy curves - and the word 'diet' never once crossed my happy mind. My husband,a bit of a Jack Sprat himself, is my biggest fan - even with my new mommy-body which has taken me 11 painfully arduous months of self-psychology to make peace with. I can't quite say that I am at the 'love-myself-to-bits' stage yet, but I can see it on the horizon, at least!

{This is just the beginning of much, much more on this universal and layered topic: more will follow as soon as Layla (aka HRM = Her Royal Majesty) allows.}

Monday, January 11, 2010

I cheated... {blush}

A week or so on, and I am bursting with pride to tell you that I am making my New Year's Wishes come true! No more small mountains of cookies with every cup of sugary coffee; instead? black coffee or rooibos with no sugar, and I fill my tall petal-pink glass jug with water, placing it on a little round antique crocheted doily atop a gold-filigreed porcelain saucer - and then regularly fill up a turquoise, circa 1974 tumbler with the metabolism-boosting, cleansing, hydrating water from the tap! Despite being very anti-exercise-to-look-like-what-we-think-we-should-look-like, I've embarked on a relaxed journey into enjoying the God-given gift of my healthy body instead! Step 1: Layla and I dance every day to her nursery rhymes DVD (fave song of the mo? The Hokey Pokey), our Putumayo World Music CDs or anything that tickles our fancy. Step 2: Instead of the bathroom looking like a dedicated aquatic playground, I took back some space for myself - tidying up Layla bath toys up and away onto the wall, and packed a basket full of delicious Body Shop and Lush goodies: strawberry body polish, cocoa body butter, olive oil body wash... (I have to add here the serendipitous detail about how I came by this extravagantly big basket of delight: On Friday, I popped in at my South African friend down the road for lunch, and she asked if I 'needed any smellies'? She had been stockpiling them over the last year - gifts she couldn't possibly hope to use up by herself. And I was the lucky one she wanted to share with! This exquisitely timed gesture of hers has literally given me back to myself. Thank you, Ang!)

Layla's asleep in her bed - occasionally swiping her mouth in her sleep from the teething pains. And as my fingers fly excitedly across the keyboard, I wish I was a fully-fledged writer, with my name splashed across arty glossies, national newspapers and - and - and... This could be one of my New Year's Wishes, right? Access to the internet is absolutely critical, in terms of research. Or is it? (I'm just thinking about how I'll manage when we don't have broadband back in SA...)

... hours pass.

In the meantime, I have found an apparently EXCELLENT internet provider which my sister is already using : Afrihost! So maybe we will have internet access after all :) One of the steps I can take towards becoming a writer is to stop researching how, and actually start writing articles, risking life, limb and possible heartache by sending them in to magazines. And maybe, instead of whining about how little time I have, I could schedule a few hours on the weekend where I can be alone (i.e. focused) to write and polish an article. OK - so as a first step towards granting this New Year's Wish to myself, I hereby schedule a writing date with myself and babysitter/husband for this weekend! Voila ;)

PS. In the hours indicated 'hours pass', like an addict in the painful throes of craving, I clambered up onto the kitchen counter and ripped open the Quality Street tin (actually panting with sugar-lust) and grabbed a handful - not even stopping to carefully choose my favourites... I think I broke a World Record : 5 chocolates unwrapped and scoffed in less than 60 seconds. Any challengers?! But - as I said to my mom: it's ok if you fall off the wagon once, 'cos you can just sommer climb back on!

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Wishes versus Resolutions...


Leo Babauta is an inspiring blogger I discovered quite by accident one day when I typed 'how to be a domestic goddess' into Google. (Sigh) Embarrassing to admit, but it has been many years since that has bothered me. Anyway, the long and the short of it is that his blog, Zen Habits, has completely demolished my devout belief that New Year's resolutions are nothing more than a sad old cliche, with his latest blog entry.
Despite the very Buddhist vibe in the blog title, the concepts covered are decidedly not New Age, but extremely practical and digestible, unlike so much of the opaque 'crystals 'n yoga' literature out there. (Hope I haven't offended anyone?) Getting dressed after my nightly bath with my little girl, I discovered I had reached that point in my life's trajectory where I could simply not put on another post-baby/too-damn-cold-for-exercise/bored-so-let's-eat-shitloads-of-sugar kilogram. As much as I had tried to reconcile myself to 'be the size you are' and other such sloganised, self-loving beliefs, I have had days when I look at myself in photos and mirrors where I don't really like what I see. And besides that, there is my health to consider! (Yip, another cliche. But when you push all these cliches aside and find the reality you are looking for, it is both harsh and comforting. Like throwing open the curtains and windows to a gorgeously sunny morning after a night of way too much red wine.) Babauta's suggestion to take things extreeeeeemely slowly, and to let go: let go of EVERYTHING holding you back like past failures, fear of failures, blah blah blag... Well - it just makes so much sense. The clarity he paints through his simple suggestions is so different to anything else I've ever encountered in the 'help yourself' arena.
Anyway, part of what he suggests is making your resolutions PUBLIC. Ouch. But being accountable to more than just yourself makes it so much easier to make decisions on whether or not to gobble down too many McVities Chocolate Digestives for lunch instead of putting in a drop of elbow grease and making that healthy, wholewheat sarmie... that big glass of water or another glass of pinotage... And so, my friends, it is here that I very publicly declare that I am on a mission to love myself again! To not merely make an effort for others, but to look after myself too.
Wish me luck - and plenty of encouragement :)