Little Elbows That Go Bump In The Night

Literally months have passed (yet again) since I last managed to write. 2012 seems determined to keep me on a delinguistification diet, leaving me aching with nerdy hunger for words, sentences, commas and question marks. I've gone so far as hunting for a torch to take with me to bed so I could sneak in a few seductive pages from my much-thumbed, underlined thesaurus under my duvet. Like a teenage boy with his first, um... magazine, I suppose.
There've been many moments when I try and reschedule my life around writing and creating in my studio, but which always seem to come to a very frustrated naught. Option 1: Stay up after the Wild Little Night Owl has gone to bed and write the night away? Has it happened even once? 'Nope,' she admits, sheepishly and slightly a-blush. And why not, Lisa? 'Because I'm so exhausted that I fall asleep 5 - 8 sentences into Layla's bedtime story so that she elbows me awake with a bossiness as sharp as her elbows, 'Now tell the story, Mommy. Now!'
My Write More Plan's second option has also proved exquisitely unattainable: 'Get up at 5am to write before Layla wakes up.' But.................... 99% of words elude me at 5am, you see. Except the following words:
1. coffee
2. warm
3. coffee
4. snuggle
5. coffee.
Oh yes ---- and, there is a semi-sentence I am capable of thinking/uttering at 5am: 'kill gun shoot &*%^%$# hadedas!!!!!!'

And so, I have resorted to abusing Pixar as the ultimate in babysitting. Thanks to 'Madagascar', 'Megamind' and 'Monsters Inc' I am now able to steal back little pockets of time to fill with luxurious Belgian chocolate cookie-words... Let's see if tomorrow will yield another pocket to fill. (*wink*)
PS. The pic is of my sister, Julie, and I at an amazingly inspiring fundraising event we attended a few weeks ago which I will be writing about um, ... tomorrow?

Trumpets & Snowballs

{ Blogging on the run.} Cafe: 'The Vineyard Deli' in Kenridge just a stone's throw from Layla's lovely little playschool. Blackest, luxuriously bitter Lavazza, and a new novel: 'The Enchantress of Florence' by Salman Rushdie. (I'm ashamed to admit this, but I'm a Rushdie-virgin... And reading is SUCH a rare treat for me, so I may as well read something rich in poetry and makes-one-think beauty.) However, getting time to write is just as rare a jewel, so I've split my little hour of solitude into 2 half-hour pockets. Reading? Tick. Writing? In progress.

This morning, I hurried off to Tygerberg Hospital's Dental Clinic --- in particular, the paediatric ward. With a boot full of toys and books Layla's outgrown, I felt elationjoygratitudewonder. And perhaps a small pat on my back from myself. It's unavoidable, I suppose, that giving to others will make one feel good about oneself. But still, feeling good about it made me feel a twinge of embarrassment. The Bible's instructions surrounding giving to others says we should keep it from others. That no trumpets be blown. (Guess I've gone and blown that commandment *no pun intended*!!) But still, I feel that just SOMETIMES, hearing about how the compassionate service and generous giving of others changes the lives of the broken, helpless and hopeless, is important. In fact, I'll go so far as to say it is critically important. Loving goodness is humanity's core function. Society only BENEFITS from loving goodness --- that is: courage, joy, pursuing peace, compassion, active kindness, empathy, humility and honesty. Gratitude for what one has, and lovingly generous 'giving' to others generates more gratitude and more generosity. A reverse snow-ball effect, if you will. (The flip-side of this is that dishonesty, greed and self-pity generates snowballs too...) But still, for what it's worth: when you see or hear about the love of others in action, jump in and get giving! Phone that person or organisation to see how you can get involved, be it money (R10 or zillions, time: an hour a month or more if you can, recycling clothes/toys/books...) Perhaps we can't save the world all on our ownsome, but we can change just one life -- if only for a moment. (*wink* Whatcha waitin' for?)
Contact me via the COMMENTS box to donate!
Sent via my BlackBerry

Sympathetic Soutie

I'm not even going to try and convince you to forgive yet another long absence from these pages. Don't get me wrong -- I compose at least one blog post a day in my head, but - just as you probably are - I've been busier than a one-legged cat! But, happily so.
For example, I've been spending time with two new friends I met through Layla's new little school buddies. One of the families are freshly arrived from Korea (9 months ago) and the other has been in South Africa since August last year: an Indian family direct from Delhi with a prior 6 month stint in Newcastle, a la Muddy Isle.

Visiting Younju yesterday, she asked me why I don't write on my blogs anymore (a question, and I know it sounds like I'm blowing my trumpet very loudly, that I get asked very, very often.) It always ends up with the usual two excuses of 'too busy' during the day and 'shattered/buggered/nattered' at night. If my li'l princess wasn't such a nag-apie (Afrikaans word for 'night-monkey' -- see pic below) I'd probably be able to get in an hour or two's writing a night. But, I have always preferred to spend the evening with my little Layla than whip her off to bed hours before she's ready. It's also that I sympathetically identify with her night-owlishness; I spent many hours of my childhood nights beneath my duvet, torch lighting up the hungrily devoured pages of my latest copy of The Famous Five, praying the torch batteries wouldn't die before I got to the end of the chapter!) Anyway - I digress as usual...
What I was saying was (9 minutes left to write before leaving to pick Princess up from school *sigh*) that it was such an honour when Youngju revealed that she was reading my blog! With only 9 months of English under her Korean belt, it's absolutely mind-boggling that someone would be prepared to sit down and patiently decipher each of my usually-too-long sentences! Wow! I promised Youngju I would update my blog last night. Better late than never? I hope so, Youngju.

What I am especially enjoying about these two new friendships is the reverse sort of Soutpielism - and my ability to encourage and help them where I can. Sometimes it's with explaining South African culturalisms or answering a telephone call to clarify specific details with the often impatient caller. HOPEFULLY, and all my fingers crossed, I'll find a bit more time to write - even if it's in short little snatches? (This'll peeve my 'greatest, most loyal and most pushy fan', no doubt - eh, Mrs Melrose Cheese? *cheeky wink*)

Adios, all my amigos
x x x

AWOL Absence Apologised For!

Well, well, well... I feel like stranger to my own blog! A prodigal procrastinator! Or, perhaps I'm being a little harsh on myself? You see, it is not as if I've had nothing to write about, or even been lacking in the desire-to-write department, but my life for the last 6 months has been, in a word: hell. I, Layla and my parents are locked in a kind of deadlocked limbo - but, as has always been the case when I have been faced with pain (or, in this case, agony) I have made the conscious choice to transcend the problem and its pain, and choose to respond to it in a way that grows and stretches my heart, mind and soul --- leaning heavily on my God for the peace, joy and strength that is not able to be wrested from the weak, selfish human heart alone.
There have been surprisingly few people who have questioned how a good, loving, compassionate and all-powerful God, 'should' He exist, allow situations such as mine occur. The answer is not simple, and although it is intensely personal, it is not private and is perhaps worth explaining how I have experienced His presence, love, comfort and guidance over the last few months?

Here are a few happy developments:
1. Layla started school in January - and is a teacher's pet deluxe! She is the littlest one of them all, but certainly the most exquisitely unusual (if I may say so myself! *wry grin*)!
2. She turned a very exuberant '3' at the end of February - and celebrated in style at school with all of her little friends, having chosen Toy Story cupcakes and Flings as her snacks du jour. Somewhat alarmingly but not at all surprisingly, she chose a 'party dress' in the style outlawed by the Fashion Police with the passing away of the 1980s! A red, nylon-shiny and tulle confection a la Disney Princess! But somehow, Layla carried it off with her gorgeous uniqueness and funky sort of grace. How could I but not be proud? (I'm already having visions of what she will no doubt quirkily conjure up for her Matric Dance!)
3. There is a fantastically lovely family I have met through the little boy who is in Layla's class at school. They're Korean -- having only set foot on this wildly different African soil just 2 months ago. With my seven looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong years as a South African living in England, I can only but begin to imagine how isolated, lonely and misunderstood they must be feeling. If I, as a fellow English-speaker, felt alienated and an alien in a land whose culture I 'grew up on' via television, film, music and literature, how much more so would this Korean family be struggling with this flood of strangeness and newness, where not just the language is so radically different (not even Latin-based!!) but where the culture is also a West versus East clash. Sheesh! Anyway - they have asked me to help them settle into their new life by teaching them English, and filtering the South African culture into their lives. What a blessing and weekly joy this is proving to be!

'studio-plekkie' I set up last week!

4. An old friend arrived out of the beautiful blue about 2 weeks ago to announce that she needed me to produce samples for her of my work, for both decor shops and corporate art commissioning! WOW! The big question, of course, is this: will I be able to earn enough moola to pay the bills? We'll see. Time, and bloodsweat&tears will tell, eh?


In stores nationwide (*modest l'il smirk*) you'll discover my 3 ranges:

(top row is still in progress)

*Madame Fifi: Guru of Whimsy : all things decor - such as the 6 little canvases (7 x 7cm) in this picture -- and all sorts of other magnificently unusual and Lisaesque concepts.
*Pillowtalk: hand-embellished, quilted etc bedding: cushions and quilts.
*Little Miss Muffett: handcrafted and ridiculously quirky/sentimental toys!
*Talking Point: Art Commissions: nudes, landscapes, abstracts, portraits. (Now WHO on EARTH would EVER have thought I would 'go commercial'?! Yip, Michaelis, I've gone over to the dark side. My dad's relieved!)



Anyway - I better not write too much in case I wake up to find it's only been the sweetest dream...

Adios till next time,
Lisa

A Self-Indulgent Little Yarn!

Thought I should rather write here than in my handwritten journal. There’s the two plus-sides to this : I can keep y’all updated with what’s happening in my complicatedly happy little life – as well as preventing myself from self-pitying bitching in my private diary!


Plekkie: The Pink Fig, Port Elizabeth: topping up my adoration of Capetonian glamour and gorgeousness.

Beverage: Bitter, black coffee which reminds me of Greece – but probably, the Greek association comes from my recently adopted role as editor for a Greek author’s novel about a young man’s quest to discover the secret of his being orphaned, and set on the island of Zakynthos. Ironically and perhaps serendipitously, this is the one island we were forced to skip on my sweet-sixteen sailing holiday around the Ionian islands. (Running a day behind Papa’s strict sailing schedule *sigh*.)

Soundtrack : ‘Havana Lounge’ – a spot of Cuban sunshine on a surprisingly nippy day.

Here's the latest on my flourishing writing career (a slow-growing but hardy cactus! )
a) Plenty of interruptions and obstacles, some disappointments and a little too much lack of support. (After expressing my resulting anger in a response to a friend’s blogpost, he spoke to me, kindly, about rather responding in grace, and sometimes with fire&brimstone (i.e. righteous anger). His following words to me have somehow stuck in my heart:  A painful truth to internalise, but too, too true: my heart feels tough, rough and black. But the words, ‘respond with grace’, are healing: and I find myself treating everyone with more patience, kindness and beautiful love.)

‘Nothing destroys a beautiful woman faster than bitterness and resentment.’

b) Through some external and very loving, attentive nurturing, my thorns of self-confidence are growing beautifully: I daily protect my heart with grace, and sometimes an assertive little prick or two.

Image by Lisa Roberts Carter
'The Metaphysics of Knitting'

My article, ‘The Metaphysics of Knitting’, published last week in Hy-Se-Sy-Se became the departure point for a new direction in my writing and creative journey. I’ve decided to head into the sunset of fashion and beauty: analysing global trends in my quirky, detail-rich and apparently alternative style. Once I’ve defined myself as a ‘brand’, I’ll soon be creating a website showcasing my talents and passions, where I’ll be able to sell my ideas, making a lucrative living at last! (How’s that for flowering-cactus self-confidence?!)



Image by Lisa Roberts Carter
For Post about Collect Jewellery

 And while I’m blowing my own trumpet: I’m now writing for a Canadian e-magazine to be launched in September. Called ‘BoutiqueMademoiselleVintage.com’, my speciality will be adding a bit of South African flavour of vintageness! I also joined Twitter last week - and it has been the most phenomenal business and networking tool! Find me on Twitter : @lisa_the_jotter

Image by Lisa Roberts Carter
For BoutiqueMademoiselleVintage.com

Better say ciao and begin writing up my story about the TLC Blanket Project dreamed up by Judy Hendra. Inspired by her idea to knit up a colourfully cheerful blanket, embellished with numbers and the alphabet to help Ryno, a young man who, after a debilitating motorbike accident, has to relearn how to walktalkreadwrite – and even swallow again, Judy has grown her idea into something far-reaching and spectacular: to give each toddler in Africa a ‘learning and comforting’ blanket.

As soon as it’s published, I’ll post the link back here! So come back and haul out your courage to spend less time on yourself, and knit up a storm! (And, if you’d like to get started ASAP, please leave your details for me in the COMMENTS box below! Time to be a Hero! I started yesterday evening and am already almost finished my first square!)

Patriot Games & Poetry Pie

Blog-jogging in the car (blogging-on-the-run, remember?) on our way back to Grahamstown after an idyllic weekend in PE! Our BoysInGreen kicked serious Kiwi Ass (and despite the fact I didn't watch the game, I'm a)still MASSIVELY chuffed, and b)relished the vibe of patriotic euphoria, waved about in giant flags of green and gold, hooted and shouted --- hang on (!) - I didn't hear a single vuvuzela?! Ag, I suppose South African Man's a 7 Day Wonder. Pity... The vuvuzela became such an icon of our success as a world-class nation - as well as a symbol of the blending of our two different (sporting) cultures.

I spent the morning immersed in poet Elsibe Loubser's new poetry - and swimming through them in graphite and paper. (We realised we are both consumed by the same ideas about 'love vs livelihood' at the moment. So when I suggested we collaborate, she grabbed me in a great big Blackberry hug, saying: 'Yes, please!')

Then, there is the page from my visual diary circa 2003.

And the bird image is from my Black Velvet exhibition in 2003: where Elsibe and I met! She bought that particular artwork from me --- and: HUGE HAMMERING-HEART HONOUR: she STILL uses in the writing course she teaches! Lekker, ne?

Adios-time,
Me
'Men must live and create. Live to the point of tears.' Albert Camus

Goodbyes (and the eternalness of an ellipsis...)

Time is what mortalises us, I think.

A week ago, we heard the shock of news that my Aunty Lola had lost 14kg in a month. And the next day, the diagnosis, the prognosis... Inoperable pancreatic cancer; 2 - 6 weeks. 2 - 6 weeks of what? How? And... why? Why.

Her daughters and siblings have flown in from all around the world to spend this last chapter with her. And though my heart is breaking with not being able to see her 'one last time' (what horror to even type that phrase) I am scared and ashamed that I don't know how to say this goodbye. What I do know is that this final goodbye is desperately sacred. And the thought of a phonecall frightens all the memories of her out from the bottom of my childhood's heart - a Pandora's Box. I want to keep her alive in my heart - and keep my memories of her locked up tight : pink heirloom pearls in the dark, dusty velvet of my heart.

And yet, I know real, strong and true love demands a goodbye. There is honour in opening your heart in the face of the terrifying confusion of grief-about-to-happen. And this I know. I must phone. Tomorrow.

Insert: Lola as a young mother, holding Tandy, my cousin. (Her photo on my writing wall -- a reminder to pray, her very own votive candle.)

(There is more to tell. Another day. An easier day.)
'Men must live and create. Live to the point of tears.' Albert Camus

Pearls Before Breakfast!

There is a very good reason why proverbs exist: because they are distilled truths. Nuggets of divinely inspired wisdom. And my particular pearly nugget?

"Leap, and the net will appear."

And do you know that GUARANTEED, every time I leap into the void, that net catches me with the utmost grace. This circus-act of courage and blind faith has been repeated so often in my life, that I wonder why I backpedal into my coward's corner as often as I do. Surely by now I should know?!

My most recent spiritual 'bollemakiesie'* was a decision to steal back my Destiny from the numbing mediocrity of marriedness. And with no space, in every sense of the word: time, studio-space, heart/mind space, I made the painfully radical decision to choose only ONE passion to focus on. I could simply not be :
1. Mama Mia Extraordinaire
2. Online art-decor 'butik' designer/maker/owner
3. Freelance writer
4. Blogger (for myself + other sites)
5. Fine artist

And so, I chose to concentrate everything I have on my writing. Why? Our house is (and I'm not drama-queening it for a change!) is the size of a large-ish caravan. So, men, I've now proven that size does INDEED matter. There is simply no space AT ALL to function as a productive artist. At least with my writing, all I need is my laptop and a dongle. (Sounds lavishly naughty, doesn't it? But it's only a small rectangle of internet-conducting plastic...)

23 highly illicit cardboard boxes from the backdoor of our local supermarket later, and my studio was sifted and sorted, bittersweetly boxed for another time and place. But - another proverb that rings so true for me - "Get rid of the old to make space for the new" : and so, with this letting-go, there was space for something brandnew and beautiful to take it's place: so when I worked (with none of the guilty, distracting obligation of my waiting studio draining my energy/time) all weekend on researching paying writing markets and setting up my writing resume, it should have been no great surprise that after submitting an application to write for a Canadian vintage-fashion magazine only yesterday afternoon, that I woke up to their excited letter of acceptance in my inbox this morning! (Thereby proving BOTH proverbs irrevocably foolproof, reassuring and inspiring!)

(And wasn't that a nifty little method of bragging? *wink*)

PS. This photo of Layla reminds me of the photo I sent to the creative director of the magazine, describing Layla's emerging fabsession (fashion+obsession) --- in this photo, you can see the peach ribbon on her hair: she saw me packing it away into a box, and specifically asked me to put it in her hair in a bow -- even though I've never done that for her before. Amazing! Oh yes - and that also makes me think of her sitting on the kitchen counter two nights ago: and while she was sampling the avo with much lip-smacking, she announced, out of the blue: "Hmm, this is fantastic!" Quite remarkable for a 2 year old. (Well, this proud mommy thinks so anyway!)
PPS. I (unashamedly and with greenest envy) stole the title for this blog from a Pulitzer-winning article. Google it (and set aside 20minutes to slowly savour and digest it) A writer-friend in the States sent this nuggety-pearly wisdom my way - and I'm : grateful.
'Men must live and create. Live to the point of tears.' Albert Camus

A is Apple, B is for Benefactor

Apples are Layla's fruit du jour - but peeled, mind you. Miss Specific. Pears (the crunchy green kind!) are her next favourite fruit. Hence my first ever celebration of fruit as part of my kitchen decor. Miss Specific.

My second self-imposed exile in the UK opened up the unlikely treasure trove of the English institution of The Saturday Car Boot Sale --- and an almost manic, magpie-ish obsession with antiques and quirky vintageness. Hence the little 1950s Bakelite doll, and the silver and bone knives and forks (which I use every day!)

I aaaaalmost started a happy little rant about the metaphysics of beauty, but because this is quick jot from my Blackberry, I HAVE to keep it short (finger-cramp/tendon-inflamation). But - at least it's something, huh! (*wink*) (All thanks must go to Stacey Beadon for suggesting idea which I'm christening : blog-jogs ---- i.e. blogging on the run!)

PS. Internet is miraculously on the near horizon for me (*phew*) thanks to a not-so-surprising benefactor (my mom!) So soon-soon I'll be able to write more than these little Blackberried snatches.
'Men must live and create. Live to the point of tears.' Albert Camus

Layla Sleeps = Mommy Writes

Abandoned - my previous attempt at a blog post about the ( im )possibility of mothers being artists. That draft has sat there, waiting for me to come back to it, for 2 weeks now... In the meantime, I made a new friend: Elsabe Milandri - also an artist and a mama with a very young and busy toddler. Besides these two things we share, we also both have less than perfect living conditions - and the tiniest of makeshift studios. And, boy, do I mean tiny... But: in chatting to her, she handed me, on a golden plate, the epiphany I've long been hunting blindly for since Layla was born: "Use your limitations to your explicit advantage: make small works and exhibit with pride your ability to transcend what others as limitations. Use your creativity to turn your limitations into your wings. Fly!"

One of my biggest 'wings' is poverty.
1. Poverty - literally. Because I am not working, our life on my husband's teacher's salary sometimes feels a little dismal: but, in TRUTH, our life is so much richer for the life we give Layla through my constant, responsive mothering. These few short years investing our love, energy and time into her will pay such special dividends later on, when I will be earning money for us, and missing her magnificent presence around me: not like my shadow, but my sun.
2. Poverty of time. Because I am the kind of mother that is fanatically devoted to her child's development (amidst the irritable sighs of others) it means that the only time I really have to do anything for myself (brush teeth, dye eyebrows, draw etc) is when The Angel sleeps. (Hence why I have already been interrupted no less than 5 times between 12pm and 7.42pm trying to write this post!) But: I am not going to give up trying to find the flipside-positive of this time-absence thing! (What being a mother HAS taught me is to honour the time I do have: I no longer fart-arse around in perpetual procrastination! How could I have wasted all those 31 years of lazy lie-ins?! Now I grab life and my opportunities by the balls (however sporadically!) So - thank you, Layla, my baby!

(And now I have to say goodbye: time has fled!)

Sent via my BlackBerry from Vodacom - let your email find you!

Look out for Thenjiwe Bunu's Infallible Samp Recipe: COMING SOON!

Perfectly marrying this random/personal/lifestyle blog with The Soutpiel Phenomenon, Samp&Sushi is my new blog dedicated to the glorification of all things gastronomical: taking the South African palate into special consideration, of course! (*wink*)

Have a cook - oops, I mean a 'look', and leave your comments because......................... I love hearing from you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Mohlee Method!

Milky Lane Mama (Part 4!) : The Mohlee Method

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!

Milky Lane Mama (Part 2) : Reality Bites

Milky Lane Mama (Part 2) : Reality Bites

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!)

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*)

Curl Up & Dye – Part 2

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

Curl Up & Dye (ii)

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.)

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!)

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...........................