Ma Wa Gray

Eva and her cousin Benjamin are in a hockey team. They are the Mighty Cubs. They are 7. Eva has never played a game of hockey in her life.  My impression of her on a hockey pitch is a little ferret motoring around, stick held high in the air, her mind in a dimension that makes no reference to hockey. When I ask her about her contribution to the game she says, 'I just spend so much time thinking about what to do next. That I don't do anything.' I would concur.  The tournament that these small people are playing in has different age categories. Unfortunately the first category includes 7, 8 and 9 year olds. The difference between a 7 and a 9 year old on a hockey pitch is quite startling. I wasn't able to watch the Mighty Cubs in action last week but based on the very sweet and encouraging messages on the parents group afterwards that they 'tried their best' I suspect that our little team won character points, and not actual points.  Yesterday, on the side of the n...

 There's a popular meme going around saying that 'Nobody has embarrassed me more than myself when I posted statuses on my Facebook from 2009 - 2012.' I would like to counter that with, 'There is nobody that I recognize less than myself in my matric school magazine.' Cringe. That's literally all I can say. This weekend I had lunch with a school friend who has been doing a deep clean and came up with the dirt from high school. I haven't read my school magazine since I left school. Boy oh boy was it triggering. And again, God's timing is perfect. I have really been battling to process the behaviour of some of my matrics in their final days at school. Impulsive, selfish, entitled, irresponsible. And then this weekend I was reintroduced to Emily, circa 2001, and it has brought up so much because my frontal lobe was also short circuiting all over the place. And I was miserable.  My matric year was kak. I was freshly diagnosed with panic disorder, was taking he...

I have a friend who, for many years, lived in a beautiful flat on Durban beachfront. Most of the pictures she posted during the years she lived there were of her view. Sunrise, sunset, full moons, celebrations in the waves, beautiful days.  I'm not going to lie, they did get a bit long in the tooth.  But for her this view, and capturing it in pictures, must have given her stabilization. Must have grounded her and positioned her back into her natural environment.  And now I feel the same about my view. I could write about it every day. Specially on days like today where I feel that things are falling apart and the centre cannot hold. Days like these will come and go. But my view won't. It will continue to anchor me and remind me that God's natural world will always be the centralization that I will seek when all else feels flimsy. 

 He doesnt know it but one of my past matrics sent me a message completely out of the blue yesterday on a very auspicious date. Two years ago today, when he was in matric, this boy made some very bad choices. Choices that got him expelled. It was a deeply traumatic time for all involved.  He left in a dark cloud and I was very worried that that cloud would stay on him, infiltrate him and become him.  But a few of us never gave up on him. And I walked his final exam journey alongside him, if remotely. He went on to get an A for Drama and is now studying at one of the top theatre schools in the country.  Yesterday he sent me poster for the two productions he is currently rehearsing for under the direction of undoubtedly two of South Africa's most talented and renowned directors.  My boy even snuck me a little glimpse of a rehearsal. And he is doing magnificently.  And he doesnt know that yesterday, two years ago, his world looked very very different.  Th...

 Creatures and Critters fills a small plastic container with a multitude of tiny little black worms. For three days your enraptured daughter lovingly feeds them mulberry leaves. You go on holiday. The worms come along. The holiday delights completely distract your daughter. You feed the silkworms.  In a week the tiny black things grow 20 times their original size. Your realise Creatures and Critters did you a solid disservice. A head count is taken. Over 150 silkworms. They now eat breakfast, lunch and supper. Their living quarters consist of two massive plastic containers.  In your regular feeding sessions you will them to start spinning their cocoons. So does the lone exhausted mulberry tree at the bottom of your garden.  How often does something seem like a good idea, grow into something exponentially overwhelming and then generally gets abandoned by the bright spark who had the idea in the first place? 

 I'm lying in a single bed between Gray and Eva in 'the girls room'. The girls I'm referring to are my three aunts, all over seventy years of age, some even older.  We are in the original family home for the week. I write about it often, because I write about home often. Eva asked me this evening if I have more memories of being on the farm or of the homes I've lived in with my little family of Stockil-Smiths.  It was a good question. I suppose the significance of my memories on the farm is that they are almost all painted with the brush of a brain that wasn't fully formed yet. The frontal lobe is only fully formed in one's mid twenties. The time I met Stephen. It comes as no surprise that the time when I was finally ready to commit to fully adult relationship was when I fully became an adult myself And so everything I have shared with Stephen has been through the lens of a person who literally knows her mind.  But before then, my goodness, the lenses change...

 This morning as Eva and I ran errands she asked me, 'Mom, what is the meaning of life?' She's 7. But not the norm. Most of my teenagers don't hit that question until I teach them Godot. And even then for some the existential search for meaning isn't as important as the staring line up for the first rugby team. But here we are, parked outside the gluten free bakery, pondering the meaning of life.  Needless to say all my answers were, to quote Eva, 'the K word'. Kak. My children must never use this abbreviation out of context. Lots of things are 'the k word'. Like Eva's bike that she's grown out of, that doesnt even have gears. And last night our Springboks were 'the k word.' Playing our B team against the Aussies led Gray to seek me out in the kitchen multiple times during the game, in tears, because our team was 'K'.  I digress. I didn't have a suitable answer for Eva. She did throw in reincarnation and atheism and the so...

 Heritage Day. Public holiday. Day 1 of Michaelmas holidays.  A number of mothers have arrived and let their children loose onto the trampolines. Despite their attempts at makeup dark rings highlight a long term. Fathers stare off vacantly into the mid distance, focus entirely somewhere else. Children's screams are ignored.  A toddler begs her mother to jump with her, she replies tersely, 'If I jump I'll wet myself.' The irony of the name, Jump 4 Joy, is not lost on some. 

 Our kitchen has just had a full renovation. Three weeks ago I manically packed up my entire kitchen on a Sunday afternoon. Things just got chucked into boxes because I didnt have time to be all feng shui and zen.  Now that it's almost done and I'm one lick of paint away from a brand new kitchen I've decided I'm over washing plates in my bath and preparing salads on my late father in laws writing desk so I'm moving back in.  But I didnt think it would be this emotional. Almost everything we own is either a hand me down or a kitchen tea or wedding present. And I still remember who gave us what.  And some of those people aren't alive anymore, or our friendship has drifted apart, or they live on the other side of the world and sometimes they are still second on my WhatsApp messages.  And 14 years into our marriage lots of the things are a little the worse for wear. They might have the odd chip, or now be an incomplete collection, Uncle Rick's hand made wooden e...

I haven't put my rabbits to sleep for a couple of days now because of late night rehearsals. But their burrow is now our room and, despite living in a five bedroom house, we now all sleep together. Mattresses live stacked against the walls and their beds in their bedrooms remain untouched. This morning when the alarm went off a soft vleisy Gray hand made its way under the cover to hold mine and a small wiggly girl jumped into bed and curled in on my chest for a cuddle.  One day when I am old and my children are making burrows of their own I will not, for a moment, regret these sacred and fleeting moment with my rabbits. 

Tomorrow will be the 10th time my matric Drama class will perform their final practical exam. Ten years of watching little boys who believed they had a voice become young men who trust their own agency.  These journeys I take with each and every boy in my care are benchmarks of the profound life I get to live.  And everytime my boys go on stage for the final time, I see the shadow of their younger selves in the wings, willing them on, believing in the person who they knew they could become.  And when the lights go out for the final time tomorrow, and my boys start the process of all their 'lasts',  I already start to miss them. 

 Our swallows have come home. They were here, they were gone, they are back. Perched on the stretch of wire across our verandah they have resumed their scanning for mud for home making in their usual corner of the roof. Seeing the familiar sight it seems like they never left.  And yet they did. They have flown thousands of miles across deserts, rainforest, cities and unchartered wildernesses. They've flown over wars, and broken families, and weddings, and burials. They have eaves dropped on the chatter of multiple languages and have eaten the wild food of a myriad of nationalities.  They know more about the world that I live in than I will ever know. They have perhaps borne witness to some of the most iconic moments of history unraveling itself. They are navigators of this globe and all the mystery and glory of creation.  And yet, like humans, they stay together, and they return home, to me, and my verandah. 

A grizzly spring mist hasn't lifted for the past few days. And now even the frogs are quiet after their raucous spring break. I cannot see beyond the boundary of our garden and the valley below only exists in sound.  It's Monday morning, our kitchen renovation ground to a halt sonetime last week, I'm washing dishes in the bath, I have my final prac exam this week, we couldn't find Eva's homework bag this morning... Things are just lacking definition at the moment. Performance pieces are far from polished. Our kitchen is spread over all corners of the house. I dont know if I needed to pack anything for Eva for school today.  I suppose misty seasons are to be expected. The insipid rolling of one season  into the next. No bright sunsets, no views into the future, just wet mist. But life carries on in the muddle, somewhat blindly. And these seasons make the bright ones all the more beautiful. 

The nighttime frog chorus has dwindled down to one lone low rumble of an oke who wasn't good at speed dating last night. In the valley the hazy spring mist reluctantly begins to clear. Overnight buds suddenly crown myriads of green stems and an azalia is a simple riot of the brightest pink. Spring has sprung, time for new beginnings to start. 

As we are hustling children, PE bags and tennis rackets into the car I notice a beautiful Egyptian goose on the top most point of our roof. 'Guys there's a goose on the roof!' Eva a moment later, sauntering up the stairs, 'Don't you mean there's a duck on the dak'?

There are certain Monday mornings when the alarm goes off and all of a sudden a plethora of obstacles line up at the side of ones bed. Final prac exam in a week, woefully unprepared boys, trail exam marks deadline tomorrow, full kitchen renovation starts this morning, I have rehearsals every night this week, I have a sick boy at home, Eva has had another flair up of eczema... And then Stephen has a whole other list of work stuff of his own too. But I remember a time in my life when I was completely alone and was praying fervently that I would be living a life that was as rewarding, challenging, creative and full of love as the one I now live. So this morning I am going to welcome the line of obstacles and reframe them as reminders. Reminders that I get to live the life I prayed so hard for. 

 I'm heading off on leadership week to Zingela. One of the things we have to do before heading off is checking the boys bags for contraband...like vodka spritzers... There is something deeply moving about checking someone's bag. A bag is a metaphor for a person. Some moms have packed the bags. The care and attention is there. There is logic and order in the organizational structures of the packing. And some boys have done it themselves and they know where every single mozzie repellent and fishing lure is. Some have packed their undies in separate compartments. All have carefully packed toiletry bags. Some boys read the packing list and then packed a full electric bedside lamp because it said you should bring a light. Some boys packed their own bags and they are already in a state of absolute chaos with minimal clothes, energade leaking all over their slippers. And many have made last minute runs to the San to get a Tupperware lid to eat off because they haven't checked the ...

I had a bad dream about Willow, our dog, last night. I told her this morning not to be run over by a train. Stephen said fortunately trains dont work anymore.  The two hounds are now sitting at my feet while I write this. The devotion of a dog is incomparable. And if you've grown up with dogs you'll know that your timeline will be pockmarked with the joy of their arrival and the utter devastation of their loss. You never know how much you're going to love a dog when you fetch them for the first time. But you know how much they have changed you once they leave. And, unlike humans, the change is always for the good. 

Dolly Parton died two days ago. I have learnt more about her in her death than I ever would have before her death. About growing up in poverty, her illiterate father, the town skank who her mother called 'trash' and from whom Dolly got her sense of style, the millions of books children have recieved because of her, her hysterectomy at 38 that led to her childlessness but also her mothering of countless others... How sad that the true beauty, generosity and courage of so many people are only ever revealed to all once that person has gone. 

 Across the valley the dogs start their long distance relationships via bark. Several horses graze in the field at the bottom of the valley. The poultry farm clucks itself into awakeness and the echoes of late night peacock calls still reverberate through the gum trees. The fiery necked nightjar has long given up her post at the bottom of the garden and the morning birds fill her silence. The day has begun. 

  Last night we all slept in a tent in the garden. Gray and Eva had made a very cozy bed on boogie boards under the palm tree and we pitched a tent next door. Gray was the first to buckle and join us in the tent and then Eva joined us when a frog jumped on her face.  I'm not going to lie, it wasn't my best night's sleep. My mattress options were two ill shaped couch cushions pushed together (and they so happened to be on a slight slope), or our cheap camping mattress that is so synthetic that one just slides off it.  I went for the camping mattress. Day two after a gym workout hit somewhere at 1.00 in the morning coinciding with Eva giving up her fight against gravity and rolling down from the couch cushions onto me and the kak camping mattress.  Judging by the contented snores and sighs of the rest of my adventurers it appears to have been a good night for everyone else.  This morning I woke with the ubiquitous dew halo on my head from the condensation on the t...

Two children, aged 7 and 11, have slept together in a cozy nook next to their mom's bed. Its about 6 o'clock in the morning and the sun hasn't risen. Their mother hears her last born whisper to her first born, 'Lets have a midnight snack.'

Yesterday I was in the St Marys parking lot loading Eva up after her first piano lesson. My brother Tom happened to arrive to watch Holly play hockey.  We both had other places to be.  But for a good 10 minutes we spoke absolute crap to each other. Every possible irreverent inside joke was thrown, relics from our childhood were dredged up and anyone who didn't share the same home with us growing up might have thought we had actually lost it.  I haven't laughed that much in a while. A laugh where none of the humour needs to be explained because it is literally in our DNA.  I know Tom has had a hectic week. I know I have had a hectic week. Being an adult is hectic.  But the blessing of siblings is that we carry in ourselves safe places for each other. We carry all our shared experiences together. And sometimes a brief moment in the past is all we need to feel safe in the present. 

Stephen is going on his annual fishing trip with his good mate Andy, who also happens to be a botanist.  While other men plan their golf trips, and their hunting trips, and the bars they're going to hit, and the fines they're going to give each other, my Stephen is planning which ready made soup to buy and which flies to pack and which dam to hit first. Bless him. 

Gray and I love a good house hunting show. He doesn't like the British ones because it seems that the inside of every British house has a fairly cramped TV room, with a half baked greenhouse conversion off the pokey kitchen, that leads on to a small block of grass.  I like the house hunts where the top of the list to look for is a house with a view. I am happy to live anywhere as long as my windows face the expanse of the world.  Gray however will be happy to live anywhere modern, grey or black with clean lines and a lot of masculine heaviness. There's no room for brookie lace on his house.  Come to think of it I suppose the houses we look for and like are pretty accurate reflections of who we are as peoole. I need to see everything and know what's going on for everyone, everywhere. And my Gray needs a big strong fortress where shapes make sense and the frills dont matter. 

The skeleton of a trampoline lies below our bedroom window. The sides that hemmed our children in, giving them the freedom to first fly, have tarnished ripped and torn. This weekend we got rid of the supportive structure altogether. Now its just the frame and the actual trampoline. No safety net. And I suppose that's parenting in a nutshell, the slow removal of safety nets until one day they will fly. 

Its Saturday afternoon. Warm winter sun streams across my bed. I've slept, undisturbed for over an hour. The laundry is drying. The children are somewhere. We have no plans for Sunday. 

 A veil of mist lifts itself off the frozen landscape. Mountains are resplendent in snow and we are approaching the last warm outfits in our cupboards. A new season waits in the roots while the queen of winter takes her final bow. 

 Last night I watched my brother's daughter on stage with my daughter while my sister's son, who was sitting next to me, shouted loudly, "That looks like Hopey!" I will never get over this blessing. 

Sometimes after a season of dramatic change comes a moment of introspection where one can sees the the way God lines up disconnected things to make them hugely connected. We look at the one section of our spider web lives and all we see is cords, and sticky stuff amd capture. And then when we take a step back, breathe, and zoom out we see that the cords that we thought were chocking us were actually the threads that anchor us to a far bigger and more beautiful picture. Intricate, woven and divinely made. 

You know you're getting old when the thought of your newly installed linen cupboard gives you more joy than the thought of a rip roaring party. 

  The man who made a play about a man who made silent movies met the nurse who cared for the man who made the silent movies when he was dying. In their meeting she remained silent for her own reasons. But sometimes silence is all that matters. 

Why is it that no matter how many percale 100% Egyptian cotton pillow cases you buy you'll always end up with the torn pillow case that your sister used when she was in boarding school?

Junior school play dress rehearsal day. The makeup schedule arrives late on the day of the first show. People forgot the slots they had booked and are halfway to work.  Chaos.  Mothers run from the coffee shop in their active wear to lend a hand. Hair nets are flying. Kids look jaundiced in their mother's foundation. Childhood freckles disappear. Lipstick is applied and eyeliner runs across lids. Little bodies squish into leotards. Its show time. 

Today I am chosing to trust that the only expectation God has of me is to have faith like a mustard seed. One doesnt have to force faith. One doesnt need to be overwhelmed with trying. One simply has to have a small fragment of the star dust faith from which God made us to know that we are linked to an infinity larger universe and a Creator who is infinitely larger than it all. 

 In the busyness of lunchboxes, PE kit, lifts to hockey games and missing school ties its easy to forget that this is exactly the life I prayed for. 

 Last night I went to watch our choir perform. It's the final choir performance for our current matrics. I don't think it was planned but both Bjorn and Liam's younger brothers happened to be standing next to them in the choir rows. As they took their positions on the stage for a final time both sets of brothers cast knowing, naughty smiles at each other. A smile that doesn't need words, or an explanation. A smile of secret jokes and shared memories. A smile that tells you that you belong.  Yesterday I wasn't home and Stephen was working and so Gray took it upon himself to do Eva's homework with her. And this morning he made sure she had her tennis racquet. And he does a great deal of small interventions in her day to make it joyful and fun. When she hugs him she says he smells like safety.  When I hug my brother I feel the same.

Its snowed the other day. From our verandah, with the use of binoculars, we could see the white tips of the Drakensberg.  A few days later Stephen used a clever app to work out which mountain is which. The mountain we could see covered in snow was Cathkin. My home.  On a normal hazy day we wouldn't be able to see that far but on that magical morning, when the world was cleaned of all its grime and the frosts blanketed the Midlands with their crisp, I could see home. Heaven is home. If we are wise we build our houses to face it, focusing on a place that we know in our heart exists, even if we cannot see it. And on some miraculous days we catch a glimpse of that beloved place. And we are reminded of the homecoming that we live for. 

  Eva bought herself a beautiful crochet set. The box said it was suitable for ages 3 and above. I would argue that it isn't even suitable for ages 42.  I thought it might be a lovely Sunday afternoon activity with her. It wasn't.  After trying to read the very spartan instructions on how to do a slip knot I eventually found a video. I had to watch the video twice to master the art of tying a knot. I then thought I was doing well by not even trying to read the instructions on how to do a simple stitch and went straight for a video again.  You would think that people doing instruction videos might slow things down given that the people watching their videos are me. Needless to say rather than getting zen with my daughter gently stitching in the winter sun that kak crochet set got swiftly reassembled in its box with the promise that we'll take it to granny's house.  I have recently been diagnosed with chronic sensitization. I also actually qualify as having fybrom...

  This is not a political blog post, its a human one.  Yesterday I stood surveying the frugal contents of a human being's life. Contents hastily packed and cling wrapped and dropped off for safe keeping while that person runs for their life.  A person who has worked for over a decade in this country. A person who has contributed to the fabric of our society.  A person who, during lockdown, took in a mother and her new born baby because the baby's father had abandoned them. A person whose humble two room dwelling thus became the home for five people. A person who stretched her simple salary because she could not watch a mother and her child be homeless.  I can tell you countless other stories about this human being and her generosity of spirit. How with very little she still always answers the call of God to help those around her. How she is the stalwart of her community because she is a woman who can be trusted, and a woman with a heart for all God's people....

  The young man steps onto the trail. He pats the left pocket of his khaki shirt checking that his pipe, tobacco and lighter are in their usual place. He deftly swings the binocular strap  around his neck and sets off.  He marvels at how long his strides are. There is a new spring in his step, or rather an old spring in his step, he delights in its return. He knows that if he needs to run, he can run. A smile spreads across his face, a gentle, shy smile.  He walks the meandering path with purpose. As the reality of this new world settles around him he notices that everything around him is so much more vibrant and alive. The trees pulse with life and chlorophyll, he can almost feel the rhythm of life being sucked up from the nurturing ground, through the roots and out into the canopy above him. Here even the trees have a spirit.   And here the rocks tell their stories too. Stories he's been trained to read and yet now they echo with such clarity that he is a...

  The night before Jesus died He washed the feet of his disciples. At the time this action was seen as a hugely humbling gesture. Feet are intimate, they are sweaty, dusty, our very human connection to the earth upon which we walk. Knowing what we know now about feet and their connection to the rest of our bodies, and our souls, I feel this humble act that Jesus performed for his beloved friends must have been a far more intense spiritual experience than we initially make it out to be. He wasn't just cleaning the dusty roads off their feet, he was cleaning their souls.   Jesus would have connected to his disciples in a way that would have told him everything he needed to know about them, of this I am certain. He would have known who was tired, overwhelmed, battling with digestion, anxious, who had betrayed him. The stories of his friends would have been written on their soles, and souls. I suspect that Jesus would have gone to the part of the foot connected to the solar p...

  1 KINGS 19 11 - 13 Sometimes we find ourselves a long way from home. Sometimes it’s a geographical distance. Everything is unfamiliar – the food, the culture, the climate, the clothing, the people. And sometimes we can feel a long way from home in our hearts – even though we are surrounded by those who are familiar to us and who love us. Today I want to talk about a time in my life when I was a very long way from home, both geographically and emotionally. 15 years ago I was a graduate unable to find a job. I also found myself in a massive crisis about the direction in which my life was heading, or in this case, not heading. I had met my future husband, Stephen, and although I knew he was the man God had chosen for me I was at war with myself and with a future I was so uncertain about. And I wanted to run away from it all. I was depressed, anxious and terrified. And I am sure that some grade 8s might chose similar words to describe how they have felt in the past two weeks. It was ...