Author: judyfairbairns

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Island Blog – Ripples, Dementia and New Land

Two and a half years after ten as a dementia carer, the ripples continue, spreading out as if no land is there to stop them. Where is the land, the beginning, the stop point and also the start? Who knows when, after all those years of confusion, of accommodating the one with dementia, of twisting into knots in order to make things as okay as possible, landfall is an option? And, what land will be there? A strange new one, one that will require the carer to find her or himself? Yes a strange land because this carer is forever changed. Just untangling the knots will take years and then it is not so much a finding of who I was before, but more of building a new me, one I don’t know at all, not yet.

I have just listened to ‘Travellers to Unimaginable Lands’ by Dasha Kiper on Radio 4, a series on dementia and caring and so intelligently put together as to explain the dichotomies, confusion, anger, demands and lack of understanding as to affirm exactly what I and other carers go through. The one with dementia becomes more of what he or she always was. Correct. People ask ‘How is he, or she?’ until we, the carer, grow weary of answering whilst feeling even more lonely and isolated than before. Rarely, oh rarely, does anyone ask ‘How are you?’ Why is this? Because, I believe, there is far too much still unknown about dementia and the devastating and long term damage to the carer; because a long term sickness is something to be compartmentalised, understood and run away from. It is messy and uncomfortable and what we want to see is a bright, capable, carer who doesn’t complain or fall apart. We want to hear about the good moments, hold onto them and even, in our kindly ignorance, encourage the falling apart carer to focus on those times. We don’t want to know about the details, the nightly horrors, the extreme lack of sleep, the anger, frustration and fear. We cannot process it, we just cannot. Please, their eyes tell me, keep this light. I’m just here to bring honey, flowers, a card perhaps have a quick coffee but I must get back to my own life. And there you have it, there I had it, there all carers have it. And somehow we cannot let our feelings out for fear of seeming weak and failing. So, we don’t.

The series, however, investigates and illuminates the feelings a carer will feel. Sometimes, the longing for it to end, swiftly followed by a tsunami of guilt. Sometimes the desire to hurt, to punish, to argue and shout. Sometimes the wonderful warmth that appears as randomly as the accusations, of an old companionship, a shared long-term agreement on what music we like, what stories, what memories we share. A glimpse of what was, the longing for it to stay a while, fingers clutching as it recedes or snaps shut like teeth, gone, forgotten, denied. The ensuing sadness, the rise from a chair I only just sat down in, my smile eager, say more, say a bit more, yes we did do that, share that, enjoy that together, then a lonely wander into another room as he clamped on his headphones and goes back to Casualty, something he would have mocked when he was the man I knew.

I am thankful for this series because although it was tough in parts to re-live those long years, its existence means that carers, unpaid or paid, just might find the support they need. Dementia is cruel and endless, or so it seems. As the person with dementia moves into unimaginable lands, they don’t go in a linear way, one we can understand and process. There are no uniform stages, nothing we can expect nor prepare for. As the sufferer’s unreality settles as reality in a damaged brain, there is no conversational flow, no logic, nothing to grasp onto. A carer lives reactively and that is upsetting, confusing and exhausting. Nothing agreed ten minutes ago is a truth, because a new ‘truth’ may appear, changing everything. And so the carer must accept this or fall apart. There is no opportunity for discussion, no way to remind a damaged brain of what was agreed, a trip to the shop, a cafe, a doctor’s appointment, because in his mind, that decision is my delusion, something I made up and never communicated to him. You always were flighty, fey, in another world!, making things up. A derisive snort, a turn away, and I must accept this without recourse to my own frustration, without expelling a fruitless vomit that would only make a mess, one I would have to clear up. To disagree is to bring on a 8 part series of accusations, rejections, sulks and criticisms, and all carefully, or so it seems, targeting my most vulnerable inner weaknesses, and poking at them all. He doesn’t mean to hurt, I tell myself, whilst I try to calm the feelings of rejection and the sting of dismissal, whilst I recall he could often behave this way as a healthy man. And, as he lights up like a Christmas tree when someone he is fond of comes to chat with him, the loneliness is crippling.

So, I say, Hallelujah to this new understanding of how a carer feels. Hallelujah to the freedom that understanding and exposure brings. To shine a light on we who care or cared just might nurture us as we work through the chaos and the years, because it would mean we no longer need to pretend everything is marvellous when in truth our whole world is crumbling. It also might mean that we can find new land once the story comes to an end knowing we gave our very best, our falls from grace understandable, our sacrifice a gift, not only to the sufferer, but to ourselves. And, when we are no longer all at sea, we can swim with the ripples until a new land makes them stop. We can climb out, ragged and torn whilst knowing who we just might be able to become, curious, broken and beautifully lost. I got through it, I did, and, both despite and because of the memories, I am proud of that.

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Island Blog – Ordinary Fun

Up with the sun, we are and ready for action. The task this day is to de-grease the deck and then to oil it for when my younglings let out the house. So much to do, so little time, but I am always game on for physical work, never having been good at sitting on my butt for very long. It always takes time, as a guest, to find out what ordinary tasks I can take on. There’s the washing up, of course, and the floor sweeps etcetera, but I find there’s often a lot of ‘You’re on holiday’ responses at first, when I offer to help, which is a caring sort of thing to say. I counter that now with a reminder to them that my butt is expanding with all this being on holiday stuff, and my legs need a cartwheel or two to flex them up again. I don’t notice how much flexing I do back home, lugging or stacking wood, lifting heavies out the way or into it, gardening, climbing steps, scrubbing out cupboards or hoovering black spider webs in the ghastly loft. Just ordinary stuff, as I say.

The deck is covered with furniture, big plant pots, heavy tables and the big basket of dog toys. We clear, sweep, shift and heft, de-grease, hose down and wait for the sun to dry it all off. Yesterday we went to the store in search of the recommended oils plus brushes and spoke to Yolande who has a real wealth of knowledge on all things hardware. She is also an Afrikaner. After some discussion on the right and best oils for the task in hand, she asked a question that would have sounded like this in the UK, a perfectly ordinary question for sure. ‘How big is your deck?’ She, obviously needed to know that in order to establish how many gallons of oil we might need to comfortably cover all that wood, and for two or more coats. However, the way an Afrikaner would ask that question is “How big is your dick?’ My son, with a twinkle in his eye, replied “Now, Yolande, that is a very personal question!’ I watched her face, first confused and then what she had asked and how we heard it dawned on her face. First, a wide smile and then a burst of giggles that lifted us all into the air, astonishing passers by with a barrowload of hammers and planks, screws and very grumpy faces.

Such fun can be had if the fun bones and muscles are flexed and ready for the chance to out. A simple exchange of words, twinkly eyes and a dancing sense of humour can bring the sunshine into any day, can put the spring into a step, can turn an ordinary task into a story. We were still chuckling as we left, as was Yolande.

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Island Blog – Keeping Time with Time

I wake early and with the sunrise. Out here, in Africa, we are two hours ahead of the UK for a while yet, until the clocks go forward this month. Africa doesn’t bother about clock changing and it wonders me why anyone does. There must be a point to it. Perhaps there is only a limited amount of time in the world and it needs sharing. We lose an hour and another continent thousands of miles across the world finds it has gained one, over us, that is. What is achieved in that gained hour I wonder? Does somebody somewhere get a job done more thoroughly or is that hour just 60 minutes of boredom, time wasted, time not needed, time spent in waiting for something, anything to happen? And when we claim back that hour, around now, with Spring in our step, do we notice the gain of it, treasure it, make it really count, or is it just lost in sleep, a sleep cut short? This musing thinks me. I don’t need to know the facts around time gained, time lost, because this is not the way my mind works. I am more interested in the concept of time and what it means at the core of itself. Time gained? Who gains? Time lost? Who loses? All answers float in the stratosphere, high above factual explanations, beyond the reach of science or physics, free-flowing through the vast and unlimited space of an imagination. There is no such thing as time. Time is an illusion. We all have the same number of hours in a day. But what do we do with our no-such-thing, illusory and equally gifted gift of Time? Now that’s a question.

When I was mostly tapselteerie, way back when children were children, when I was taller than any of them and when, if I said NO, then NO it was, I never thought much about time as a concept. It was something the clock told me, tick, tock, tick, a hand at my back, a hurry up, a panic, a flurry of hours that allowed for no sit-downs, merciless in the tick and the tock of itself, selfish. Selfish time, stop a little, slow a bit, let me catch up? No chance of that my dear, you just need to shape up and move faster. It is like this for all in the muddle-frenzy of young life, building children, building a business, clambering up corporate ladders, learning new ways to fit in, diluting self for the benefit of the team and so on. From where I sit now, watching all this flurrying about me, I am glad it is done for me, no longer diluting self, no longer at the mercy of time, of business, softer round the edges, watching, smiling, calm. I was never calm in the olden days, although I did know people who managed the calm thing and it really irritated me that I couldn’t, me constantly on the boil, my guts in a right fankle, my legs never still. These people seemed in control of their time, allowing it to pass them by, yet still able to fire on all systems when required. Something to do with my faulty wiring, I told myself, and there was a damnit in that thought. However, looking back now through the rosy lens of hindsight, I smile as I recall the fankle, the self-flagellation, the waste of those minutes, those hours spent wishing I could be who I was not. Time wasted, or was it?

Self-reflection is no bad thing, as long as it is not indulged in and developed into a standstill. In my long journey through wasteland and over capricious and sometimes spiteful expanses of ocean, I did, and still do, need to trim my sails, to learn from life herself, to change this or that, to find a new way to look at an old thing. Learning is a lifetime’s work and I am still learning, still a student, an understanding that can really up my fed at times, and delight me at others. I still have my mind, my health, my precious life, time. None of us know how much of that we have, myself included, and it seems to me that this doesn’t really matter much. It’s who we are in the time we do have that remembers people, makes a dent in others lives. Did I waste time in my life? I did. Was I completely marvellous at filling my time to capacity and at all times? I was not. Did I share my time, gift my time every time it was needed? I did not. Am I deeply thankful for all the time spent, shared, gifted, wasted? Those hours of shared chatter, laughter, tears and silent companionship, those highs and lows, those moments spent staring through windows and wishing life was different, that something would happen to change everything……….am I thankful for all of that time? I am.

And now, for however much time is left, no matter the loss and gain of hours, I will keep time with Time. I will sleep some away, waste some, share some, sit alone and gaze through windows but this time without wishing for transformation, without regrets, analysis, criticism of self, all of that time wasting nonsense. Even through the rumpelstiltskin hours of a tossing night, even when I wish she would hurry up, slow down, stop completely for a while, even then, for Time is my friend and she is gift. So many have no time left at all.

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Island Blog – The House is Singing

The noise is spectacular! Five roofers gadding about, a mile high and as if the land beneath their feet was as flat as the tundra. They have performed this task before, methinks, so confidently do they work as a team. The first day there was a lot of hammering and poking through the thatch with long poles to establish contact with the beams. Building a structure a short way above the existing roof, a skeleton of struts to hold the Harvey tiles in place whilst still allowing for air flow so the thatch doesn’t sweat is something else to watch. The men work quickly but not quietly, chatting to each other in some African language no, shouting, even if they are just a couple of feet apart. They sound as if they are here in the room with us and yet they are balancing like monkeys, effortlessly and high overhead. To work with concentration down below is something that requires patience, concentration and the odd yell out of the window asking them to please talk quietly. This, it seems, is impossible. Their natural voices are loud, and it might take an operation to change that. I notice it’s the same among the black men and women wherever they are, shopping, working, shovelling, tidying litter or sharing an office space. These people are naturally ebullient, ready to smile, always polite, always ready to share a greeting, more than ready to laugh. A far cry, indeed, from the UK where all of us are strangers to each other, heads down, avoiding eye contact, barely able to disturb the air with a wave, let alone cut it with a sentence, and as for smiling, well, there aren’t many of them around on crowded streets or inside cars, a bus, a train. It’s as if life is happy here and unhappy back home. I don’t refer to the island folk, nor the Celts, nor a lot of other folk of whom I have little experience, but mainly in the cities and towns. It’s as if they, the ones with heads down, no smiles, empty of greetings, are living in a quiet desperation (not my words) and that makes me very sad. I digress.

It rains. I have never experienced this much rain in Africa and nor has anyone else. However much Africa needs rain, the roofers do not. Add to that the regular load shedding and there is a problem, Ma’am. No power. I see that, I reply, you will need to fire up your generator. He grins and shrugs and fires up his generator. In the times of a drowning deluge, the men run for cover but in gentle rain, the work continues and I watch in trepidation as they skid across the tiles, the sky a mackerel of clouds above them. A tile falls to the ground with a crash. These tiles are long, about 4 ft, and lined with something like aluminium making them heavy. I shudder as the guillotine hits the deck, thankful I had not just walked outside at that very moment. But no man falls, of course not. They have done this job for years and, besides, men don’t fall, or so they believe. Almost 3 days later, the roof is almost completed and having watched the craftsmanship of its creation and elevation, I am very impressed. Now we will have no leaks through the thatch. Now the house looks sharp and proud and the garden looks like a war zone. Offcuts of woods, bits of thatch, bits of tiles, power tools and no-power tools, all scattered across the grass, poor grass, and just as it was gaining new life thanks to all the rain.

Yesterday I sat here at the kitchen table working away on my laptop when a shower of thatch landed on my head. It was a shock and then it was funny. I walked carefully, like I was top of the deportment class, to the bathroom mirror and there it was, a neat round birds nest on top of my head. I do admit, as the holding poles stabbed through the thatch, to a frisson of fear at the thought of a beam collapsing down or a holding pole or a whole man crushing me to a splodge, and I did have to move around the house to avoid more birds nests, but all has gone smoothly. Beyond a lot of clearing up, sweeping and dusting and coughing and spitting, we have all survived the process. And, today, as the sun shines merrily and the generators gurgle and chunter with life giving power, it will be finished, completed and done. All the rubble, the offcuts, the tools and the men will be cleared away, allowing us to put the garden furniture back into place and to enjoy an evening, a braai perhaps, a shared sundowner, laughter and conversation beneath what promises to be a starry starry night. You hear that? I will say. The house, she’s singing. And she will be.

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Island Blog – Add New

That’s what it says when I click on ‘Posts’ on this blog. It thinks me in many ways. As I shower and dress up to join young friends for dinner inside the wildlife estate, I notice things, such as this:- One eyebrow has disappeared completely. Momentarily, I am somewhat scunnered, even as I know it is probably still there somewhere, well, not somewhere, but in the place it has always inhabited for many decades. I tip my mirror to MAGNIFIED and search again. There is the jist of it but now the other one, looking strong-ish and ‘there’, tipples my face lopsided. I attempt to colour it in, guessing the arch of it and check again. Now I look like an old woman without a map. I scrub off the colour, shrug my shoulders, and say What the Heck, or words to that effect. As I shrug my shoulders, the dewlaps beneath my arms activate. If I hold my arms almost above my head, they disappear, the dewlaps that is, but I cannot possibly sustain an entire evening thus. The young will think me bonkers and I won’t be able to eat a thing without taking the eyes out of my neighbour with a fork. I consider the dewlaps. If I was rounder, they wouldn’t be dewlapping at all, but I am not rounder and here goes another What the Heck. The rest of my make up routine is a right palaver, all guesswork and don’t look too closely as I apply eyeliner, mostly in the right place and mascara to patchy eyelashes. Spiders, I think, and chuckle. What, I wonder, do the young see with their 20/20 vision? Too bloody much is the answer, but wait. If I go wherever I go with enough twinkle winkle in my eyes, dewlaps, one eyebrow and all the rest, will it matter in the long run, the run of an evening, a load of 40 years olds with Granny? Probably not. So, methinks, tap chin, this is pretty much down to me and my attitude about me. As I move through the dewlap, one eyebrow and spiders sticking out of my eyeballs thing with the confidence of age, the history of losing things like body parts whilst acquiring others, am I not, all by myself, reversing their thoughts on ‘growing old’? How many young people, me included when I was actually young, have said they never want to grow old because look what happened to Granny or Uncle Mike or Aunty Bea? Well, maybe it wasn’t all sunshine for them and, for that, I am sorry. But if I can be just one old gal who just gets on with the process, then it’s worth stepping out there.

Today I received, as I often do, pictures of my 12 grandchildren doing things effortlessly, such as bending in half mid-air, or winning at hockey or cantering along a beach, no hands, or dressed in lycra with not a dewlap in sight. I see my own children strong, fit, altogether and jumping fences, leaping off boats, making big decisions that require effort and strength, determination and a clear mind. I had all of those, once, and that is something to celebrate. I had all of those, once. Now I don’t, not as I did. Now I falter at times, lose things like eyebrows and the next sentence, might find it harder to construct a shape to the next day. I forget a story I’m reading and have to retrace my steps. I see a crowd of people and feel lost. I struggle to chop wood. All perfectly ok if that is how I see it, because, because, I have done all of these things, with strength and confidence, no problem unsolvable, not when I was in the lead. And the dewlaps, scars, slight weakness of limbs, of mind, all are just as they should be. Will I whinge and whine about losing stuff? No, I will not. In the quiet of my mind, I will know what I know. I have seen what I have seen, lived to the absolute full and for a whole lifetime. A slowness and a thoughtfulness replaces the buzz to move move move, and that peaceables me.

So off I go into an African night, missing an eyebrow, yes, but not much else. If I Add New to my thinking, I am always beginning again, in whatever state. Now, where was I…..?

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Island Blog – I am Here, I see This

I stand on the deck above the Switsongo Boutique Guest House (check it out @www.facebook.com/switsongo) in the heart of the wildlife estate. All around me is Bush for hundreds of miles, or it looks like hundreds from here, from where I stand in the hot African wind, the sun even hotter. It is 4pm, two hours ahead of the UK, and time for a glass of wine. I can feel the desert wind, see the red sand game tracks winding like snakes through the reserve. Trees go on for ever, all the way up to the Blue Mountains, the Drakensburg range, reaching to 11,424 ft up into the sky within the border region of South Africa and Lesotho, and stretching for 1,000 km. The very thought of climbing that high peak puffs me clean out.

I search the Bush for heads, for movement, anything. A male giraffe would top these trees, easy and a scurry might mean zebra or Wildebeest or Kudu, the most beautiful, in my opinion, of deer with those stripe markings, that artistic shading, those twisted horns and those velvet eyes. Dinner for lions, but there are no lions here, no elephants, no crocs, no hippos, no danger, but wait……..I forget the leopard, but the kudu don’t, nor the impala, nor the kudu, the wildebeest, the warthogs, the bushbuck, waterbuck and all the other something bucks that nose around here pinching resident’s azaleas. About this time, a bit later, these offerings of dinner grow jumpy, move to ‘safe’ harbour, become alert and watchful, pulling in the teenagers from their raucous play, warning them. Also, around this time when porcupines are waking up and warthogs are doing this leopard jumpy thing, the termites get antsy (please excuse the pun, unintended) because it is quite the norm within this synergistic symbiosis for one of the above to make a frickin big hole, dug deep into the mound, one that can reach way over man’s head and be as wide as public toilet, sort of like a fairy castle to look at but looking is enough. Inside that mound are thousands and thousands of munchers which probably would bite your bum if you were to, unknowingly, rest it there on a big walk. Don’t do that. These ants are an inch, more, long and don’t welcome anyone much, not least a resting bum. In fact, all hell would let loose. A scout would alert and within seconds the super troopers would be on full attack mode. Although they would not eat you from the bum up, they will make sure you spend a long time regretting such contact with their fairy castle.

However, porcupines, aardvarks and those grisly chestnut warthogs don’t, frankly my dear, give a damn and one of them will, as aforementioned, dig a big hole deep into the castle, impervious, it seems to attack. During the day, the mostly nocturnal porcupine, or aardvark shuffles itself out into the night, I’m so not leopard food, just as the warthog, I so am, snuffles and grunts her way in, beckoning babies. They, it seems, are also impervious to ant attack which I’m sure they must encounter, but when I look close up at that thick skin, see a thick skin thing in their small and unintelligent eyes, I get it. It is all fight or flight for these squealers and maybe that is how they survive. I digress.

The sun is sinking, soft and slow, light dapples changing every moment, the light melting from butter yellow to a gentle gold. I see no giraffe heads above the trees but I sense they are there, out there, somewhere. Whether or not I see them seems unimportant. Just to know they might be there is a wonderful knowing. Just to hear the stories on the hot hot wind, to know that down there, down there, life is being lived and on the very edge of survival and every single night.

I am here. I am watching. I see this. I am upright, bright, lively and alive. There is nothing better. Nothing.

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Island Blog – Travelling Light

This day I am packing, not to fly back home, not yet, but instead to stay for a few nights inside the wildlife reserve at the Switsonga Guest house. Why am I doing this? Well, it is to give my son and his wife space in their own home after almost a month apart, the longest since they married almost 9 years ago. Another reason is to push myself into being alone, sort of, and in a place I don’t know, all an important brick, or bricks, in the wall of my new life. Not a boundary fence really, but more of a construct of my own making. My complete, and thankfully short term, loss of confidence after 10 years of caring plus Covid lockdowns, plus a dead husband have all shaken my foundations and I am tired of tripping over the rubble of it. I am a sturdy, sure-footed woman, fleet and curious, excited about life and on the other side of death by over 2 years. I want to learn how to be alone with confidence, appreciating the joys of freedom after many years and to experience, through a new way of seeing, how wonderfully lush the world really is. I have hidden under tables, under the bedclothes, in the cupboard under the stairs for long enough now. My time being under is over.

I don’t plan to take my long haul suitcase, large enough for a small pony, not for 3 days, so I borrow one from my son. It looks perfect, perfect, that is, until I see the piles of stuff that will need to fit within its perfect space. My laptop, plus charger, my sewing paraphernalia, no charger required, my blue-tooth speaker plus charger, my phone plus charger, my ground coffee plus cafetière, my washbag, make-up kit, sun preventer, sun soother, after sun balm, mosquito protector spray, calamine lotion for any sneaky bites, my writing pad and pen, my anti histamine, vitamin tabs, lip balm, flip-flops, costume, cardy, clock, torch for power outage, nightie, underpinnings and the case is bulging full. There is just room, just, for four rolled up frocks, squished in and sat upon. It wonders me this packing lark. Although I always travel light, in all senses of the word, I seem to be struggling with this short stayaway. What is it that has me packing for the end of the world? Well, once inside the wildlife estate, no going out at night #leopard and no car to drive myself anywhere, I need to be independently equipped for sunburn, a plague of mosquitos focussed solely on me, for all possible internal combustions, a sneezing fit (take tissues), cracked lips, tongue ulcers, beri beri fever, hyena attack, malaria and floods. Why? Don’t the owners of the guest house keep all that in their cupboards? Are they not more than able to deal with any of my imaginary fears should they manifest, which is about as likely as Johnny Depp knocking on my door to invite me out for dinner? It laughs me but I don’t take anything out of the case.

Remember, I admonish myself, that of all the fears you have listened to in your long life, only one came true, the one that named you Carer, and you got through that didn’t you, with humour and grace, despite the accompanying horrors? I nod, yes, true, but…..No Buts! I hear inside my head. Okay, okay, no buts. I’m still not taking anything out of the case. She rolls her eyes at me, Mrs Sensible does, I can feel them revolving and they tickle me. All those imaginary fears and only one came true, the big one. If I could have chosen a different fear manifesting itself, I would have. Might have. Wouldn’t have. Why is that? Well I can answer that one. Despite the battles within, when I felt like Gollum versus Smee around himself, and without, during The Resistance to Everything, the calling out of my name a hundred times a day for no good reason and the way he was alone with me, dark and preoccupied, but light and chirpy around the carers, nurses, doctors and professionals, it was a role I do not regret playing, not at all. In lockdown, when nobody crossed the threshold, not even the carers, we found an easy peace, uninterrupted, unchallenged by said interruptions, the days seemed to flow. Even when I was called often in the night, I didn’t mind, so focussed was I on keeping his dignity. I found and held onto compassion and light, changing as he did, pushing for nothing, sitting to talk when he wanted me to listen, gently, softly, lonely but entirely present and travelling light, from room to room, task to task.

So, where is your travelling light thingy gone? Asks Mrs Sensible. Oh shut up woman and please don’t come with me today. I’ll do what I want with my ‘in case of stuff’ plan and if I return unscathed you can smirk all you like. I make my own decisions now and, you can be sure that I will take the consequences thereof. Therof! she cackles as I shove her under the duvet, zip up my case, close the bedroom door and head out into a new adventure.

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Island Blog – True Communication

The weather here in Africa changes every day. Yesterday was too hot for toffees and bare feet on the deck, burning, broiling sun, the need for shade essential. Inside the weather stays much the same until load shedding when no air-conditioning cools the skin, when it becomes a sweat-fest, when moving around at all must be performed slowly in order to avoid a meltdown. Unusual, they tell me, those who live here. I can walk out in bright sunshine beneath a perfectly blue sky and return after one cup of excellent coffee in a deluge of warm rain, as if the clouds all agreed to dump their load and all at once. Just as quickly, it changes again. I am forever dinging back and forth with anti-mosquito spray only to have it showered off, reapply, shower, reapply. But this is a small problem in the face of the continuing elevation of power offs. For those who need power in order to run a business, it is a big deal, unless you have a noisy generator to fire up at such times and even that harrumphing beast won’t run everything. It wonders me. Is this a worsening thing or just for now? I believe the former and not just for Africa. It will come to all of us eventually. The key is in preparation, alternatives and attitude, much like everything else in life over which none of us has control. The only control we all have is over ourselves, our choices, our attitudes.

The Ha-di-das awaken me early each morning with their cawing. I am certain that they line up outside my window like a choir with tonsillitis, one, two, three, now! and I am blasted from sleep like a rocket from a bottle. They are big birds and everywhere and it is impossible to hear what another person is saying when they ha-di-da overhead. I decide they’re the crows of Africa but without crow intelligence, all that fleeing’ aboot and yelling the same stuff around the houses, following or chasing each other from tree to tree as if that’s all they need to do to justify their existence. In between their cawing chaotics, a sweeter song, the bulbul, smaller, softer of voice and considerably prettier of hue, lift and flutter between the branches preparing the second nest of the year. One bulbul calls, another answers, so politely. There’s no everyone-shouting-at-once thing with bulbuls. Other beautiful rainbow birds with floaty tails that arrive on a branch a few seconds after the body lands, petrol on water, aurora borealis, blood red, butter yellow, sky blue and emerald, the birds delight. None of them shout at each other. It thinks me of communication and the different ways we use it in our own lives.

We all have our colours, our voices, and we all want, no, long, to be heard, to be listened to. Sitting with another I want to hear what they say and then respond, probably with a question, thus making it clear that I have heard what you say and want to know more. If I am being a ha-di-da at that point, I may fall into the trap of counterpoint by bringing up an experience of my own. This, I have learned, is not what you want from me, not at all, because what I am doing is to dilute your story, thus indicating that I know how you feel, which is, of course, a nonsense. How can I know how you feel when I am not you? I can’t. So I ask a question based solely on what you have told me, a question that encourages you to continue. It is odd that we seem to need to compare stories as if that brings us both into a shared place, but we all do it. When himself died, so many people told me they knew how I felt and it was like they had taken out a great big eraser and rubbed my experiential feelings off the page. I stood my ground, said nothing, but felt myself disappearing because all of a sudden, the moment was lost to me and claimed by them as their own. I smiled but wanted to leave both them and the so called conversation which had suddenly become a competition.

I feel the same when someone keeps their mobile face up on the table between us, their eyes darting to look, their eyes off me. I just go quiet because I feel I am now unimportant and definitely unheard. But don’t we both have agendas and busy lives? yes, we do. However this moment we share is the moment to share, to listen to each other, eyes on each other, body language relaxed back and welcoming. You are here with me now and we are not ha-di-das but bulbuls or any other bird that has learned how to communicate softly, listening for a change in tone, in colour, feeling the story and learning from it. You tell me, beneath your words and if I am really engaged, that you are troubled about something, something that is of import and concern. You honour me by sharing, whether it be beneath your words, in your body language or clearly readable on your face. I want not to fix you because what you want from me is validation and a listening ear. Often my mouth doesn’t open at all at such times, because the urge to ‘suggest’ my solution to your problem is full in my mouth and I must needs keep my teeth firmly clenched against the spray which, if freed, will only serve to soak your story, to dissolve it.

Learning learning learning! It bizarres me oftentimes that I still have to, want to, learn a better way to communicate. When I was young and full of my own ha-di-da shrieks and rants, I never considered the rights and wrongs of conversation, my own agenda loud in my mind. I knew the way to solve this problem for you and I rolled it out like a wonderful bright carpet for you to walk on. Ridiculous, I know now, although I was mum of five and that brought a whole gamut of problems requiring immediate solution, but not now, I don’t ‘solve’ now because by not solving, not interrupting you with my marvellously mind-blowing idea, I allow you to find your own way through. And isn’t that all we want as we spread our problem out like a faded map across the table? I believe so, nay, have found it to be so as I listen, question gently and without challenge, without my agenda or my marvellously mind-blowing fix, I watch you light up with an idea, one that just might work for you, and all because I listened and paid attention, sitting firmly on my ego, my need to be the one who sorted you out.

You called. I responded. You spoke. I heard you. Mobile off, eyes on. Rain, sun, power off, power on, none of these are important when someone is vulnerable and trusting enough to tell me of their troubles. I am here. I hear you. I don’t solve you. You do. I know it. Keep talking for I am listening as the faded map between us begins to colour up.

This is true communication.

by

Island Blog – A Wasp, a Wander and a Whole new Rhythm

Hot it is and sunny, too hot to sit for more than a few minutes in the full glare of heat and light. I find myself a chair beside the pool shaded by a lovely tree with dangly fruit, the name of which escapes me, if, indeed, I ever knew. The dapples lift and sway in the breeze as if shading me with a pencil as well as with their limbs. I watch the dragonflies rainbow across the surface of the water, no bumping into each other, no animosity. Does animosity only exist among animals, humans too because we are, aren’t we, animals? A queen wasp who looks more like an exotic kite, pushes her way through a tiny hole in the masonry. I must remember to tell my African son about that, because one queen means a gazillion eggs, means a whole lot of aggressive fliers after hatching, and right above the stoep. Swatting is no fun over cocktails, not when the number of swattees far outnumber the hands of the swatters, and besides, these wasps can jig and spin away, return almost silently with a sting in mind on that wide open neckline or that bare arm. I was stung by an ordinary English wasp once on a Norfolk beach. I suspect the sting was a quick reaction to its shooting full speed into my ear, for I had just stood up to fold my towel for the homeward trudge. Get up child, now and fold your towel! I blamed my mother for the ensuing pain and swelling, the sleepless night throughout which I had that wasp pulled apart slowly by wasp haters, to be tossed into the sea, preferably 2 miles out. The African wasps are rather beautiful, lighter in body and spreadier of wings, ones with little peacock eyes at the ends that flutter charmingly. However, I am not fooled by this fluttering beauty. A wasp is a wasp and that’s a fact.

I have read four books since arriving and that happies me as reading is my second favourite pastime, writing being the first. I had wandered through the garden centre under that ferocious sun to find the little second hand bookshop. I chatted with the owner and then browsed a pleasant browse in the cool of fans as the power was off, again. The power cuts, or load sheddings, come 3 or 4 times every 24 hours including during the night when even the deepest slumber is sweated awake for a while of tossing and unsticking. I get used to it and many folk have generators which thinks me of the sound of stopping. The sound of stopping is the sound of a generator, many generators, all humming and chugging, thrumming and backfiring so that the whole town changes its beat. It is also the sound of other stops, other stoppage, other stopping. When I stop, at the kerb, say, I stop the beat of my feet. When I stop the music, there is the sound of silence. When snow falls or the wind drops, or someone runs out of words, there is a new sound as if I enter a new space completely.

As the power is returned to us, the sound is of sighs or relief, of a yay lifting into the air, perhaps startling it into fractal lines, a mosaic only noticed by those who notice. Watch it lift away to allow the new beat, the old beat, the rhythm of electric power. See how the mosaic becomes air once more, the delight in that ‘yay’ breaking up and separating to create space, no bumping, no animosity, whereas most of us down below, grounded, irritated, hot and stressed can only think of internet connection and the frustration at being ‘stopped’, jagged punchlines and a lot of grumbles. I drink coffee at a table beneath a huge jacaranda, its trunk age old and lost beneath the wooden decking, growing and rooting without interference, and offering in return, plenty shade for wanderers like me. I watch others go by on their own business, busy with agenda perhaps, time constraints, a list to complete and in time. I notice the change as the power returns, the dance in passing feet, the smile on faces and I smile to myself. The down here world has a lot of opportunities for bumping, confines, restraints, shouty bosses, deadlines and my favourite not favourite, companies who value profit over the well-being of their employees. Is it all that space in the sky that allows for a gentle symbiosis I wonder or do they, the dragonflies, wasps, bees, and other flying things, also struggle for space to beat their own beat? Are we so far behind in our learning on how to live together that we are in danger of a whole load of bumping or are we really good at living a grounded life? I don’t know the answer to any such questions, but I do know that, by looking up, by noticing and watching, through questioning and wondering, we stop our daily thoughtless trudge. And there’s a whole new rhythm there. Just listen. You’ll hear it. (Not the wasp)

by

Island Blog – Cats, Strong Women and Learning

The cats greet me at dawn, four of the five. I’m still working on the fifth, a nervous lad, a rescue like all the others. He is coming around, inch by nervous inch and I am hopeful that one day we will be friends. As I observe these cats I notice how independent they are, how individual and how they take no shit. Each does what it wants to do regardless of my plan, my agenda. I find that I like this sassy attitude even as one of them escapes my palm to leap atop the fridge freezer and to stare down at me. That’s what they do. They stare down at me. Ah, I think, I can learn a lot from you up there all lofty and dismissive and I rather wish I had adopted that attitude as a young woman. You can watch me all you like, try to reel me in, but if I don’t fancy your reeling in tactic I will distance myself and say not a word.

The South African women I have met have a similar attitude but they do use words, and confidently. They also will take no shit. If they encounter injustice, rudeness or inappropriate behaviour or just someone getting too close or sounding too patronising, they will round, talons out, mouths full of retaliation, minds confident, bodies strong and assertive. They sigh me too, a bit, because they show me who I always wanted to be, but wasn’t. Unlike in my youth, these women were taught to be singular and independent, their lives required it for living in Africa is real, no benefits, no guaranteed safety net, no easy path. There be dragons. In the UK it is more softly softly, girls are pink princesses requiring protection from all the boy stuff or from big decisions and these girls should behave themselves, wielding nothing more dangerous than a mop. At least that was how it was in my girlhood. I don’t think it’s the same now, but unless difficulties are encountered and imaginative practicality taught them at an early age, how can they learn? Here, where most need to face down dangers and restrictions, independent thinking is perfectly normal. If a woman wants something she must fight for it, and with her claws out. I like that and it thinks me.

Looking back on my own wifelife, there were plenty dangers and restrictions and, at the time I probably did mewl and whine as I encountered them but there was only me facing me during those times and I had to overcome my mewls and whines and to get the hell on with it. I guess I learned imaginative practicality on the hoof. If I didn’t sort something it would just stay unsorted and I had pride enough in myself to leap into a higher place and to look down on it with assessing eyes, my mind whirring. Living in a remote place, there was nobody to call on, not while himself was all at sea and guests required answers and solutions. If my kids were in trouble, I was the one to untrouble the trouble and I am proud to say that, in the main, I did just that. If some disaster struck or something collapsed or dissolved, I had no manual to read beyond the one inside my own head. I grew tough even when exhausted and overwhelmed because tough challenges are character building and I wanted to think of myself as a can-do solution oriented woman, no matter the restrictions I lived with. I gradually found room to move, to make space for myself and found, to a degree, my voice.

But I was also raised as a traditional girl, one who was told how a young lady should behave, all mannerly and subservient, all politeness, acquiescence, and femininity. In my time, women did not rise above their husbands, good lord no. Women who did were labelled bossy, man-like, loud, selfish and more, were required to speak with a husband’s opinion, to quietly lay down to his rules and restrictions and never to make a public fuss about it, although it was acceptable to talk with other women (gossip) in order to unburden the angst. As long, that is, that we go to another room to perform this unburdening lark leaving the men to roll their eyes at the pretty palaver of women as they knock back their brandies. A man who has too much to drink of a night is just, well, normal, such a lad, hugely entertaining, let’s put him to bed and cosset him as he sobers up. We’ll tease him at breakfast. Whereas a woman who drinks too much is a lush, disgusting, badly behaved and should be dismissed from the party in a ball of shame and rejection. No breakfast for her.

Confusion reigns in such a womanly life unless that is we can learn from cats and from other strongly independent women who will stand their ground until they fall over and if they are labelled as unfeminine, so be it. I have admired such women and learned from them over the years and I am so thankful to them. There weren’t many, t’is true, but when I found them I observed the way they quietly or loudly held their ground and I took the lesson given to heart. I learned to be not aggressive but assertive, to study my own mind and to put it in order. What do I believe about this? What is my position on that? Although I still step back when a strong man steps forward, for goodness sake, I am learning how to unlearn this, to question this presumed privilege and not to falter at any ensuing male startlement. I just hope the young pink princesses of today learn too, and a whole lot quicker than I did because the world is changing and the need for strong leadership in women, without the black cloud of bias, has never been more important.