Thursday 4 July 2013

Hot Rose Pink

It is July and the summer is here. Little girls sit cross-legged on the floor, hair stuck to sticky faces that glisten with sunscreen and the remnants of ice lollies. A baby girl bounces on the floor, every now and then, elevating her stature as she teeters, poised in a elephant-walk position, desperate to escape from the immobility that her immature core has bestowed upon her.

2 little females, in one room, before my eyes; locked in a game of play which is unravelling pencil stroke by pencil stroke to reveal kinks in the nonchalance that once was.

Each of the older 3 has her own set of colours, her own piece of paper, her own collection of stencils. They are on equal footing. Even. And yet, as one colours in her picture with a particularly vibrant shade of pink, the other whimpers with a heat to her cheeks as she wishes with all of her might that she may have that same image for her own. Her rose pink pencil is simply not enough.

The baby continues to bounce, unaware of anything better than what she already has. Content to attempt elephant-walk. Blissful in nonchalence.

I glance over again from my table space and say with a quiet authority 'you each have your own picture, they are both lovely. It is not a competition.'
 
It is not a competition.

I listen to my own utterance and just as a crystal becomes clearer the longer you hold it, the more that you feel it's weight, with my words a realisation that transcends the infantile show in front of me, pours forth with clarity.

My little girls, sisters...a perfect example of personalities brought together by blood, birth, bonds of time. They have not yet learned of SISTERHOOD...the awareness and practice of living ones life aside women without the need to be better, to know more, to prove more, to gain authority.

'But I want that colour mama!' the hot-faced counterpart proclaims.

' NO that MINE' the other yells. 'You can't have it!'

There it is again. They do not yet see the fact that each can have the same colour, the same vibrant, beautiful, eye-catching, addictive pink, and BOTH be happy. Both serve the world with their loveliness. There is enough room in the family, the house, the world to have 2 hot pink stencil artworks...one will be appreciated by one audience, the other will have it's own set of fans.

This is the world as we know it. It is no longer enough to have a confidence in yourself and let it seep from you until others intuitively pick up on your qualities. It is no longer enough to trust in the fact that we are alternative in our own ways and that like attracts like; that if you allow it to happen, the right people will be by your side without effort and the universe will conspire to make it that way without any outside force.

It is no longer enough to just be and to let it be.

I am bringing myself back to that today.

Out of my white-washed, mish-mash cupboard I am taking 2 lovely gilted frames, one black and one white,both saved for portraits that I am yet to have printed but which will no longer fill those frames. I am taking the two stencil drawings, in two slightly different shades of pink, and I am mounting them inside the frames...one highlighted by the halo of white frame and the other accentuated by a black surround. I am holding them in front of the faces that are still unsure of their own ability, their own art, and I am showing them how they each made a very similar picture, from the same tools, but that each picture can be cocooned in a different shell, with a different intention behind it and a wonderful, beautiful, necessarily different delivery.

I am reminding myself, my girls, my sisterhood in in infancy that we can all come from the same place but harbour another aura; the pink crayon that sits hot and bright in one hand might just change to pale rose anyway. We make that happen with our nature, we provide a shade to the world merely by being ourselves. We put our own mark on the world, using the same Earth, the same space, the same home, the same metabolic makeup and realising that no matter how many of 'us' there may be, we are the only 'me.'

And that is just fine.

I am going to hang the art work and watch as they work out for themselves that those cheap little stencils made two pretty pictures, the same but completely different. It was no competition.

Wednesday 12 September 2012

When the baby slips...


When the baby slips, warm from the womb, from a familiar wetness to the moisture of its mothers thighs, its eyes alight.

Bright and clear, wonderful and wandering.

 It knew where it was going long before it came.

I watch the baby, pale blue but changing, toes tinge pink and spread a little in anticipation of what its wrinkled skin might touch. Colour reaches arms, chest, face, and the eyes that were before such a glow in a sea of cool coloured flesh are now matched with a body awash with the same dazzling life.

Eyes meet eyes, breath is shared in a harmonious inhale as mother and infant regain the rhythm of unity that they have shared for so many moons.

This is the moment that all have waited for. In the dimness of the birthing room, the air scented with the sweetness of amniotic waters and new beginnings, an old soul has entered the world again and the memories of his past illuminate him. Not visible to all but there nonetheless, the mother and child shine silver and pink and gold. A searching mouth finds its habitat and nuzzles, liquid gold starts a little and halts; begins again to ease out and nurture the baby in the sort of tiny volume that is as precious as water in the desert.

When the baby slips, warm from the womb, not coerced or forced but calm and free, from a familiar wetness to the warmth of its mother’s embrace, the world stops turning for a second and the sun, moon and stars hold no comparison to the dazzle of the duo who knew each other long before their fingers touched.

Tuesday 24 April 2012

Ringlets and Springlets

As Spring fills the air and enlivens the Earth beneath my pink-polished toes, a new budding bloom is unfurling in the enriched fertile grounds of myself...

As birds awaken a sunstroke earlier and cheep life into the warmer morning haze, a fuzzy little chicklet, the creation of my egg, is learning how to open and close it's mouth; practices the oval and puckered shapes of a cry, a gurgle and a nuzzle ahead of it's first feed and cry, 5 months from now...

As my little curly girls shake their head 'no' to the clock striking bedtime in what appears to their sunlight-triggered minds to be midday, as their hot tears spring down tired faces and bedtime approaches despite springtime's late West-setting sun... in the midst of it all I wonder whether the little head inside of me is sprouting similar ringlets. Is that crazy-busy-baby in there ready to settle into the folds of mama's belly, as the curly haired girls outside, in the place this baby will one day called home, reluctantly yet immediately burrow their own faces into the crevices of their bedsheets....?

As another new day dawns and I watch the fat little fingers of my toddler work circles on my sunkissed, swollen stomach and thegolden-blonde-crowned head of my big girl moves to coincide with the excitement that she displays with wide-eyed nod to my tummy, I am marvelling at it all. They do not question, they accept. They do not worry, they laugh. They do not think of this lifeform as magic...it just is.

The Springtime, their sibling inside of me, the creation of new, the growth of life- we are enveloped in it all. It is enveloped inside me now. But the curly-haired girls are, to me, the most miraculous part of everything: they disregard the miracle and enjoy the experience.

If only we could all be curly-haired little girls. We would be ourselves and nothing other, be honest about yet nonchalent about our loves and refrain from pretence. Oh to be surrounded by curls... what a wonderful place this would be.

Saturday 31 December 2011

Have a kiss at midnight...x

I lay in bed this morning, the clock ticking away to a respectable 7:30am as the darkened air of the bedroom began to fill with the chatter and life of 2 little girls and a yawning husband. The final day of 2011 is upon us and with the final opening of eyes this side of 2011, the prelude to the  turn of the year welcomed with it a wish-wash, dreamy haze of memories and wishes: all that has been and all that may be.

I am not one for resolutions, per se. The same things that I would scribble on my to-do and not-to-do lists which should traditionally define the skeleton of the looming year will be much the same as the things that I hope to accomplish every day...my desire to be a thoughtful friend, a true wife, a dedicated mother, an avid listener, a healthy body and full, rich soul are all simple, honest declarations of  that which I wish my character to be but which are characteristics that even for the best of us are a work in progress and, in my case, will span the decades of my life until I take my final breath. It takes a strong heart and sharp mind to tackle the obstacles that interrupt smooth running, it requires a sturdy grasp on that which is important over that which is monumental...I'm still trying...

..The flight of a soul to a higher place is a moment that can stop time for each and every one of us, envelop us in sorrow and guilt and relief and distrust. It has been in the lives of my family this year as it had the previous and it undoubtedly  stole a little piece of what we ultimately needed just to carry on: gratitude. How can you be grateful when your life is torn either to pieces or around the edges? Gratitude- the softened area of our existence that is nudging, calm, peripheral but should not be underestimated...if your wish-wash dreamy haze of 2011 points you towards edging each and every remaining second away in order to catalpult into a new year remember this: all that has been will follow you until you find a smudge of good in the whole picture. Look back and think...remember that morning in spring when sunlight poured through your drapes instead of a gloom of grey February. Remember that one time when you took a walk for a little longer than you intended and felt the vibrations of heightened energy fill your lungs? When somebody told you that you looked nbice when you had been traumatized all day about the state of your hair. And that instance when you felt that nothing could or would or should go right for you, that the weeks were getting longer and harder and there was just no way out of the mess. Until a little chink of light seeped in through the cracks, caught hold of your innate need for a better time, and started to inject into the outer edges of you, giving you a taste of what you needed: hope.

I am still in the haven of my home, still pondering how 2011 took away the souls of loved ones and gave me grief until I cried. I am also listening to a toddler, who has morphed from baby into chatterbox within 12 months and am paying heed to the language that only her and her sister seem to understand. Time does not revolve around ensuring that you make the most of it- it moves on as sure as the river reaches the sea and once a year, when we get the glorified opportunity to take a glance back over the many moon-changes of 12 months, it does at least provide a chance to remember one thing: you have come out the other side. Breathing, living, learning, laughing, crying...but here.

I'm not making a resolution but I will try this: to take a glance back through time a little more often than once a year and grasp at the 'ordinary' over the extraordinary. Not the deaths, not the births, not the winnings or losses...the breathing of sleeping children that I have had the fortune to hear every night and the kiss before bed that has never deserted me.

Have a kiss at midnight and bring in 2012 with the gratitude that it deserves- you'll reap rewards greater than any resolution will bring.

Merry New Year beautiful people, I love you all near and far :)))

Wednesday 7 December 2011

Look a little closer to the proverbial home...

As usual, cup of tea is steaming at the right hand side of my keyboard, my feet are the freezing extremity, burdened by my refusal to leave the bare-footedness behind that I have always preferred and two little voices, high-pitched with youth and gender but heightened by excitable squeals, resonates softly.

I have checked my emails, uploaded cherished photos that have so far captured the early sprites of festive mischief and wandered through the pages of social network.

I get a little message on the right hand side of the screen and without warning that familiar crackle of stinging teardrop swells in the corner of my eyes. It appears that this somebody is dearer to me without either that person or myself realising it.

 'Merry Christmas, I can't send a card but didn't want to forget you'.

 I know not exactly what it is that chokes me a little and makes me recline, take a sip of tea and smile inside and out. But something nudges at my sentimentality a touch but punches at my guilt with a fire behind it. It seems that I wasn't going to be forgotten about but I know, with a heavy hang of shame, that this person would not have been a part of my thoughts on this day, Christmas Eve or any other day; or not in any grand way in any case.

 I'm somewhat saddened and anxious that I can be blazĂ© about a human being who is also able to stir up such an emotion in me with a short and sweet ditty on facebook. It's time, I believe, to stop schmoozing with those immediately around me, quit cotton-wool-wrapping my nearest and dearest and look to what may seem a little further-afield but which is closer than one would imagine, withing grasp; take a stroll through the memory banks, the remnants of days gone by. Do not dwell on the past, they say; but what happens if your past is a collage of heritage, questions, answers and memoirs that were created before you even came to life. Some things are bigger than you, bigger than the present, and within a few fleeting but fervent seconds I have just had my eyes opened to this conclusion.

All at once, I am apt to look beyond the here and now and remember the people and the times and the places that are as much a part of my present as my past. They canot knock on  my door for coffee and cake but they can make me well up with a single line of innocent well-wishing. They share the fact that they too are a part of the same decisions and dalliances and dirty laundry and dear, dear domestic rollercoasters as I which, although somewhat sinister by themselves nonetheless combined to make a wonderful legacy and stories that I shall forever remember rolling off the animated tongue of my grandmother.

I love that I have not been forgotten when, for every intent and purpose, you would say I have no place in the thought process or memory of this one person. It takes a little stinging teardrop and a simple sentence sometimes to bring me back to a place of recognition and so I shall not forget you either.

Merry Christmas back :)

Thursday 24 November 2011

Tick Tock.

You know that feeling? It's that little glow of gloom that sometimes envelopes you first thing in the morning, at first a little haze which prevents you from removing yourself from the safe haven of the sheets in order to catapult with a vengeance into the new day. It isn't a depression, it is definitely not all-consuming but it's that little nudge of negativity reminding you that today is another day which will be much the same as yesterday. And the day before.

That, my friends, is called routine. It can stabilize you for a short time and give you the safe tick-tock of a running clock but when you're tired of the constant click of the second hand making it's way around the continual face, the minute hand spinning a little too quickly, it can also make you panic. You wonder where your time, your precious moments and, indeed, your life is going.

This has been me for a few weeks. It's been there before but then I make a plan for something in the not-too-distant future and it brings me back to enjoying the thrill of the organisation...until, lo and behold, I actually start to wish time away in order for the event to arrive.

What a pickle!

I have come to the conclusion that I can enjoy the hum-drum of routine and revel in the fact that everything that I think is guaranteed is most certainly not. What I think is habitual is only so for so long... The bathtime ritual of two little girls, always during the witching hour where a bubble bath does not equal blissful tranquility; a fitful mess of soap suds and squealing children should not pierce my senses like fingernails down a chalkboard. If I sit back and watch, kneel down next to that tub and get involved in the bubble-basketball, I can see the things that I shall never be able to flick through and notice in such a delicious manner within a photo album, no matter how pretty the cover is. I will see the little brown birth mark on the skinny ribs of a hyper 5 year old, the fold in a cheeky 16 month olds arms, the tangle of hair down two pale little infant backs. I will see the widening eyes of a toddler as she watches her sister spell out words with the letter magnets and see the pride in the pupils of 5 year old eyes that are learning , learning, learning. I will still have to listen to the yelps of wet smacks as a fight breaks out over the bath boat but I will be there to soothe it away rather than cringe and almost crack. I will remain a witness to the agonising heart-break of me, that spoilsport mama, announcing that it's over: time to get out kids and face the prospect of bedtime. But I will also be the same person who can diffuse the hot-cheeked cries with a soft towel and gentle brush of their hair.

This won't last forever. These moments, the very moments that I wish away at 6pm at night, will not be here in 10 years time when these two trusting, affectionate girls are devoid of the desire to be sponged down and request privacy.

I understand.

For me to cut loose the noose of life passing me by, I have no choice; I have to appreciate as much as I can the small little snippets of existence that make up an entire canvas that will mark my time here as 'my life'.

You know, it really is the small things that make up the rest and it's the routine and rationale of day-to-day clocks ticking that make each 24 hour period another brushstroke on that canvas that adds to the bigger picture until it all makes sense. You may want to erase it and start over sometimes but it's not a possibility and to hell with it anyway; it adds character.

It's amazing what a bit of writing can do for the soul. All of a sudden, I can't find the gloom. I see my reason, my rhyme, my potential. It's in every single one of us, it's just a case of seeing how to make that clock tick to your own tune.

Friday 2 September 2011

Be Calm & Carry On.


Geez, people are in a rush these days. This, coming from a chick who tends to let her handwriting take on the form of a childs as she rushes to articulate words from mind onto paper in the gazelle-like speed that they manifest. Coming from she who stumbles over her words as the excitement of fresh opinions, thoughts, concepts bombard her consciousness to the point that SHE HAS TO SAY IT NOW. Regardless of whoever else is unfortunate enough to be attempting to speak. I realy should do something about my ignorance, interrupting people is just not acceptable and I have gotten away with it for far too long. Oh yes, and I deviate from my line of thought because of said anxiousness to relay every morsel that my mind digests.

So anyway, people are in a rush. One very big race to do everything that 'everybody else' is doing. And as much as I like to let my mouth run away in a frenzy of chitter-chatter and prefer to run before I can walk when it comes to hobbies new, I am by no means in a hurry for the chapters of my life to emerge and take form any sooner than that elusive lady-in-waiting, Destiny, has decided. I'mwith 2 kids, it's been kinda' hectic already for crying out loud.

The union with my husband began 12 years ago; we met at a time that pointed towards failure, he moving to a different country within days of our introduction. Truly, we let it happen, whatever it would be. Que sera sera. It was not rushed or pushed, but allowed to take course. We didn't care much for each other, we didn't stay indoors and pine for each other, foregoing any form of fun until our next rendezvous and  there was no grand gestures of love at first sight(although I am not a cynic on such matters, I believe in it wholly), but it was in our bones from birth. We were a match. No persuasion of emotions would or could have made what we have and I'm not so much proud but priviledged that I spent no wasted time or effort. It just was. It just is.

My children have setted into my belly and come to life at a time that was not necessarily ideal for me,but the final outcome has been perfection. It was meant to be.

On the contrary, I have attempted to shape my life in a way that just was not laid out in my cards and the result has been a big, fat bite in the ass. I've tried to be the waif-like rocker, booze-induced smiles hiding the shame that I felt at the disgusting way that I was treating my body. Saccharine substituted sustenance of a true kind and wow, when that low-cal high hit a low, it was time for me to understand that Earth did not provide us with the raw sweetness of fruits and natural energy of nuts for us to cast aside as inadequate means for me to attain that lean thigh. Bitten in the fat ass I was; no slimmer, just grey of face and hungover. I wasn't what Mother Nature intended me to be; she moulded me with shapely hips and breasts that a child could fatten her bones from. When I got back to the truth of the matter and gave my creator the respect for her art that was requested, Destiny was realigned. The world of Sian became peaceful. Curvier, but peaceful :)

I'm wondering why it's taking so many of us so long to get the pretty simple message that things will happen at the pace that they're meant to happen. Sure, we all 'want'. We all like to dream about the future and even plan a little about what might happen when we get there. But if you just slow down and watch someone in the midst of it all, in the centre of forcing what may or may not already be, you just pay attention and I dare you not to cringe at the car crash that is right in front of you. I've watched with salt-stung teary eyes too many times as what could have been paradise, natural and inevitable, is suddenly thwarted, bent out of shape. Ruined. By rush.

It's friday today. It's the weekend for most and it's probably a very good time to slow down. Think. But don't do. Just let it be what it will be.

I'll practice what I preach, repeating loops of my l's and dots of my i's until my handwriting is worthy of adult stature and attempt a cure at mid-flow stutter....Be Calm And Carry On.