peter pan

I cannot believe it is Friday again.  Another week that has sped past at a hectic pace.  It has been a busy week but not without fun.  Two birthdays parties for little girls which got me searching, once again, for my feminine side. Not easy, because for me earrings (and sometimes lipstick) are about as feminine as I get.  If you don't like pink, how do you shop for little girls?  How much pink can one little girl surround herself with? (Ask Amy).  So it was off to the bookshop for me. Never a quick trip. Once again I discovered some of the lessons that went way over my head as a child and then the guilt because I do not remember ever reading classics like Peter Pan or the Water Babies to my children.  Like so many of the books from our childhood perhaps they are only supposed to come back into our lives when we are grandparents (should I ever be so lucky).  I ended up buying each little fairy a couple of my favourite Milly Molly Mandy books and immediately realised that they will probably think "weird books" but Aunt Jenny is a bit weird anyway.  I also bought another edition of Peter Pan for myself. 

Beautiful

Peter Pan: There oughta be a fairy for every girl and boy.

Wendy: Oughta be? Isn't there?

Peter Pan: Oh, no. Children know such a lot now. Soon they don't believe. And every time a child says I don't believe in fairies, there's a fairy someplace that falls down dead.

(hectic Peter)

You see, when the first baby laughed for the first time,
its laugh broke into a thousand pieces, and they all went skipping about,
and that was the beginning of fairies
Peter Pan
(much better Peter)

 

Wise guy Peter Pan!!

I have been in a bit of a fairy mood lately (gracious me, more feminine than I think) and have only just realised this.  I am busy reading a very interesting book - I took it with me on holiday to Salt Rock and am savouring it by restricting myself to a couple of pages at a time.  It is the kind of book that is better to read slowly.

 

A bit about it:-

"The Good Fairies of New York is an award winning novel by science fiction writer Martin Millar. This novel is about a group of fairies who, after a night of drinking, find themselves in New York City with no clue how they got there or how to get home. Two of the fairies befriend humans, but their attempts to help their new friends causes tension among the various groups of fairies living in New York, culminating in a street brawl. At the same time, among the other fairies transporter to New York are the young children of the Cornwall king who are the only hope of a group of rebels who disagree with the king's decision to allow Magris, his magician, to turn their peaceful country into an industrial nation. This battle comes to New York, bringing to Central Park a battle between a Cornwall army and the disorganized, disgruntled...

More here

Crazy thing when I start writing and things just tie in together.  I love it when that happens.  Have a great weekend.

decisions decisions

I have spent the last three nights doing camera homework.  Kathy is off to New York (again) later this week, my camera was stolen with my handbag and she has offered to bring one back for me.  Amazing how much cheaper they are there and for the R2 500 that I am prepared to spend, I can really get a much better camera.  However, this does entail some work and has made me realise what a bad consumer I am.  If I walked into a camera shop, I would tell them what I was looking for and end up taking the salesman's word for which is the best.  It would take me 20 minutes and I would walk out and be satisfied.  Now I am having to be my own salesman and boy is it a hard job.  I have shortened the list to two makes Canon and Sony (I have had both and was very happy with both of them) - there are so many (too many) options.  Different sites compare models and prices and I have printed out lists and lists of the different features.  I now have to make up my mind and have cut the list to 5 models - 2 are the compact "point and shoots" and the others are the slightly larger bridge cameras which look more like cameras than cellphones.  Do I want a small camera that I can keep in my bag at all times or a bigger camera (that I will keep in my bag at all times)?  The pixel story also confuses me as apparently you don't need to have 1000's of mega pixels to take better pictures and in fact too many pixels affects the colour and light of the pictures.   Which one would you choose?

 

Canon SD4000IS

 

Sony Cyber-Shot WX10

Canon PowerShot SX230 HS

Canon PowerShot ELPH310 HS

Sony CyberShot DSC HX9V

Anyone have any suggestions and advice?  (But please don't throw another make or model into the pot!!)

This morning I really needed a camera.  It is the most stunning day in Cape Town.  All my plants are blooming and everything looked so crisp and green (even my new birthday mug).  I had to capture the beauty so took some pictures with the Blackberry.

So chuffed that the white Plectranthus has finally bloomed

What is a morning in the garden without a cup of tea? (in the big green birthday mug)

Not everything is perfect though (can it ever be?)

Some bald spots on the lawn

 Autumn leaves starting to fall

when i look up at my beautiful plane tree

so tall, strong and proud

providing relief from

the summer sun 

and shade for my table where i can

relax and read and

drink icy wine

on with friends

(or on my own)

but the ides of march are here (beware)

and the days are getting shorter 

and i see the leaves starting to change colour

and brown and curl

and when i look up at my beautiful tree

i know that every single leaf on my tree

will shrivel and dry and fall

to the ground

and need to be raked and picked up and bagged

(by me)

 

Every pleasure requires some effort.

bittersweet?

Sorry I have been so quiet.  I had a great weekend with a bit of everything - meeting up with old Rondebosch mums at a birthday cocktail party on Friday night, a day in the garden and then the kitchen on Saturday, friends for supper in the courtyard on Saturday night (hasn't the weather been perfect?) and a lazy day in the heat yesterday (plenty of leftovers so no need to cook for Granny).  I also spent quite a bit of time reading different blogs on my laptop (but not writing much).  There is so much wonderful stuff out there and so many awesome blogs that it all makes me feel a tad intimidated.  Gareth is pretty peeved with me for delaying my crossover to my new website (my Christmas present from him) but I am still without a camera and am still struggling to upload pictures in the correct size and format onto the new site.  Looking through this new list of blogs I talked myself into getting inspired rather than intimidated.  So being an inspired, non-intimidated and generous person (and lazy) I thought I would share a few things that hit home.

This one comes from this website.  Take a read:-


Dear Sugar,

I read your column religiously. I’m 22. From what I can tell by your writing, you’re in your early 40s. My question is short and sweet: what would you tell your 20-something self if you could talk to her now?

Love,
Seeking Wisdom

Dear Seeking Wisdom,

Stop worrying about whether you’re fat. You’re not fat. Or rather, you’re sometimes a little bit fat, but who gives a shit? There is nothing more boring and fruitless than a woman lamenting the fact that her stomach is round. Feed yourself. Literally. The sort of people worthy of your love will love you more for this, sweet pea.

In the middle of the night in the middle of your twenties when your best woman friend crawls naked into your bed, straddles you, and says, You should run away from me before I devour you, believe her.

You are not a terrible person for wanting to break up with someone you love. You don’t need a reason to leave. Wanting to leave is enough. Leaving doesn’t mean you’re incapable of real love or that you’ll never love anyone else again. It doesn’t mean you’re morally bankrupt or psychologically demented or a nymphomaniac. It means you wish to change the terms of one particular relationship. That’s all. Be brave enough to break your own heart.

When that really sweet but fucked up gay couple invites you over to their cool apartment to do ecstasy with them, say no.

There are some things you can’t understand yet. Your life will be a great and continuous unfolding. It’s good you’ve worked hard to resolve childhood issues while in your twenties, but understand that what you resolve will need to be resolved again. And again. You will come to know things that can only be known with the wisdom of age and the grace of years. Most of those things will have to do with forgiveness.

One evening you will be rolling around on the wooden floor of your apartment with a man who will tell you he doesn’t have a condom. You will smile in this spunky way that you think is hot and tell him to fuck you anyway. This will be a mistake for which you alone will pay.

Don’t lament so much about how your career is going to turn out. You don’t have a career. You have a life. Do the work. Keep the faith. Be true blue. You are a writer because you write. Keep writing and quit your bitching. Your book has a birthday. You don’t know what it is yet.

You cannot convince people to love you. This is an absolute rule. No one will ever give you love because you want him or her to give it. Real love moves freely in both directions. Don’t waste your time on anything else.

Most things will be okay eventually, but not everything will be. Sometimes you’ll put up a good fight and lose. Sometimes you’ll hold on really hard and realize there is no choice but to let go. Acceptance is a small, quiet room.

One hot afternoon during the era in which you’ve gotten yourself ridiculously tangled up with heroin you will be riding the bus and thinking what a worthless piece of crap you are when a little girl will get on the bus holding the strings of two purple balloons. She’ll offer you one of the balloons, but you won’t take it because you believe you no longer have a right to such tiny beautiful things. You’re wrong. You do.

Your assumptions about the lives of others are in direct relation to your naive pomposity. Many people you believe to be rich are not rich. Many people you think have it easy worked hard for what they got. Many people who seem to be gliding right along have suffered and are suffering. Many people who appear to you to be old and stupidly saddled down with kids and cars and houses were once every bit as hip and pompous as you.

When you meet a man in the doorway of a Mexican restaurant who later kisses you while explaining that this kiss doesn’t “mean anything” because, much as he likes you, he is not interested in having a relationship with you or anyone right now, just laugh and kiss him back. Your daughter will have his sense of humor. Your son will have his eyes.

The useless days will add up to something. The shitty waitressing jobs. The hours writing in your journal. The long meandering walks. The hours reading poetry and story collections and novels and dead people’s diaries and wondering about sex and God and whether you should shave under your arms or not. These things are your becoming.

One Christmas at the very beginning of your twenties when your mother gives you a warm coat that she saved for months to buy, don’t look at her skeptically after she tells you she thought the coat was perfect for you. Don’t hold it up and say it’s longer than you like your coats to be and too puffy and possibly even too warm. Your mother will be dead by spring. That coat will be the last gift she gave you. You will regret the small thing you didn’t say for the rest of your life.

Say thank you.

Yours,
Sugar

Oh gosh this got the tears flowing.  Just made me think of how everyone has their own story and how we are all so different but have the similar insecurities.

And this paragraph:-

"When you meet a man in the doorway of a Mexican restaurant who later kisses you while explaining that this kiss doesn’t “mean anything” because, much as he likes you, he is not interested in having a relationship with you or anyone right now, just laugh and kiss him back. Your daughter will have his sense of humor. Your son will have his eyes."

Don't you want to know more?  Have you put together a story in your head about Sugar? About an affair with a lesbian friend, drugs which started with ecstasy and then went on to heroin.  About falling pregnant (and probably a abortion).  Kissing a man in the doorway of a Mexican restaurant and ending up having his children (did she marry him?) and then the sad bit about her mom and the coat. **

Now I am thinking of what my 53-year-old-self is going to tell my 20-year-old-self tomorrow.

**The coat bit reminded me of the canary yellow silk top that my mom bought me for my birthday many years ago.  I did say thank you but hid it in the back of my wardrobe (if you know me, you know I don't do colours (what were you thinking Mom?)).  Months later my mother mentioned that she had never seen me wear it.  Confession time and I dug it out (lucky for me I had not given it to Albertina).  My mother could not return it to Stuttafords because it was on sale (busted too buying your eldest daughter a present on a sale!!) and she had lost the slip (because it was a couple of months later), so she kept it for herself.    How often did you wear the canary yellow shirt, Mom?

as free as a bird.......

Often

in the morning

 as I take my first sip

of tea while looking 

out 

of the kitchen window

 I realise 

and feel grateful

as I watch the birds

competing for the breadcrumbs and bits of

cheese that I put out 

for them

to eat

the previous night,

I think of

the lives of birds 

and although it seems 

a far more simplistic 

and a more free life than mine

it has problems, troubles, fights

and difficulties

and I realise that it is far easier 

being me 

than being a bird 

and having to compete for food and have

bigger birds be nasty to you

and that one moment you can be 

splashing and wetting your feathers 

in a birdbath

and then when you leave

the safety of my courtyard

and venture into the sun in the front garden

to dry your feathers

you get eaten by the cat

from No. 9

and I, 

at the end of the day,

get home from work

and find the garden covered

in feathers and wonder

which bird you were

and how could one bird have so many feathers?

and feel bad because I let you down

and offered you food and water

and made you feel safe and brave

and could not warn you

about the dangerous cat

from No.9