A Cicada and a Palette Knife

It’s hot tonight and when we sat down to dinner we left the balcony doors wide open in the hope of a breeze. A cicada saw the gap and came right on in to see what all the light was about.

“That’s what happens when everything’s open and the lights are on,” my mom said as she ate her burger.

For those who don’t know, cicadas are big insects (this one was at least the size of my thumb including the knuckle). Cidadas, as my dad mentioned, use sound as a weapon. They are LOUD. “Our” cicada crashed from wall to pitched roof to plant to cabinet, back to the roof – and so it went.

“Turn off the lights,” my mom said. “Open the courtyard doors.”

“You’re just issuing instructions,” my dad said, releasing the latch of the doors. “I’m the only one that’s doing anything”.

This was the wrong thing to say to a woman that had made black bean burgers from scratch.

“I mean relating to the insect,” my dad corrected.

Jess then appeared at the top of the stairs, having put Kit down. She opened the door and her eyes began to follow the alarming insect flying around the room at pace.

To this day, there are few things I find funnier than watching someone react to an insect they think is on them. I tried this with Jess, shouting, “Watch out for your face”, and then roared with laughter, even though she didn’t react all that much (not because she is nonchalant about insects – she is chalant about them – but because she didn’t believe my cry wolf). (As a side story: A few years ago, I was en route to a post-wedding brunch in an Uber with the back window down and a loctus flew into the car and onto my top. The screaming that ensued from my friend next to me and my friend in the front seat, sent me into hysterics.

My friend then shouted, “I don’t understand why we’re still driving! Stop the car. Stop the car”.

The Uber pulled over and I jumped out to place the locust on the verge and then thought better of it, turning abruptly and pretending to throw it back into the car. Pandemonium …

Back to “our” cicada – back to Plett.

Jess took her place at the table and we all sat there, watching and listening to the cicada jet around the room. Then silence. The cicada took a break or got stuck in some nook, and we thought that was the end of that, but she started up again. And then, WHOA, it lands on my mom’s bare arm. Now you must understand that my mother lived in Londolozi, in the greater Kruger National Park, for many years. For a time, my parents literally lived in a mud hut. This is not the first large insect encounter. But it’s ON. HER. ARM.

Moira doesn’t scream – she stands up, stretches her arms backwards in something that resembles a crouched power pose and does a fast walk outside through the open doors to the garden. Only there and only then does she let out a yelp. Apparently it flew from her arm to her hand and pinched her.

Moira returns to the table with the look of someone that knows they have just demonstrated great calm in a high pressure situation.

“I wanted it outside”, she says, after we all compliment her on her composure.

Photograph of the day: My mother is a painter and this a photograph of one of my favorite pieces of hers. It’s not the full painting but a cropped version of it and – truth told – doesn’t do justice to how beautiful the painting is. The painting hangs above the bed in Jess and my room in Plett. I once asked Moira if I could have this painting (I have other really beautiful works of hers). Moira said no. I would also say no. The interesting thing about this painting is that it was my mom’s first ever painting with a palette knife. As I understand it, you have a lot less control with a palette knife. The benefit of that loss of control is a freedom – movement. My mom once asked her teacher, looking back at this painting, how she managed to paint so well with the palette knife on that first go. Her teacher told my mom that when she painted it, she didn’t know how difficult a palette knife was. She just did it.

 

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A House on a Hill

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Every third Christmas my friend – let’s call her Terry to provide some anonymity since I’ve highjacked the story and it’s too late to ask for permission – goes on holiday with her husband’s family in a remote spot near St Francis. It’s a private nature reserve with no electricity, two lone houses, lots of space and their own beach. The kids (lots of them) run wild. Rex, their black Labrador also enjoys the freedom – he strolls rather than runs though (his name has also been changed to protect his dignity).

The houses sit on a hill a fair way away from the beach. Maybe it’s more of a slope, or a foliaged covered dune than a hill – let’s not let the details get in the way of a good story. The point is the houses are some way from the beach.

One afternoon (it could’ve been morning), Terry sees that Rex is swimming in the shallows – nothing unusual about a Lab taking a dip. Rex, however, is on not at his physical peak (read slightly overweight). He starts to struggle in a rip. Terry watches anxiously from the house, scared that the backwash will pull Rex deeper and deeper out to sea. She shouts to her husband, Joe to ran down and help. Joe is up to the task, sprinting down the shore but he stops short of the water. Watching.

Terry starts to panic. “Why is Joe just standing there?” she asks her sister in law who is also watching Rex flailing in the ocean below.

“He’s worried he’ll get caught in the same rip. He needs to think of his own life,” her sister in law says in his defense.

Rex’s snout is going under. Popping up every now and then.

Terry starts crying. Again, she asks, desperate now, “Why isn’t Joe doing anything?!”

Because it’s an otter.

Not Rex (who is resting in the shade behind the house, well out of danger). An otter.

Photograph of the day: Playing around with a slow shutter in this evening’s blue light. 

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Light from the bathroom door

Tonight we heard some really awful news about a friend. There were so many joys today, before the news; so many moments I could focus in on and write about, but my heart feels heavy this evening. Writing about any of that joy feels false in the wake of my worry and the gut punch of it. So I won’t. I will only say (because the news is not mine to share or talk about) that life can change awfully quickly.

I will circle back to some of the joys of today and some of the photographs (because there were some special ones). Even though I took quite a few photographs on my ‘proper’ camera today, this one struck me as my favorite, despite taking it on my cellphone.

Tonight is ‘my’ night – in that I will sleep next to Kit and Jess is sleeping in the spare room to get much-needed rest. I came downstairs to get ready for bed and found Jess and Kit like this. The line of light sliced through the bathroom door and I’m not sure there’s anything more beautiful in the world.

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Lost Post

Two minutes ago I lost my writing for today in a wifi issue while I was trying to upload my photograph of the day. I think I’ve been working on Google Docs for so long that I thought WordPress would also automatically save drafts. I thought wrong.

I’ll rewrite it tomorrow. For now, I’m too tired to redo it but I wanted to show up here regardless.

Losing my draft aside, I had a good day: Time with my daughter and Jess on the beach, a really wonderful wedding in Knysna. This evening my wife gave me a foot rub. A pretty good day, indeed.

By the time I got home from the wedding and we had Kit fed and bathed, I had lost a lot of light and a lot of energy. Still, I went into the garden to try take my photograph of that day but couldn’t find much inspiration (not the garden’s fault – it’s beautiful). So I looked up and saw the clouds and decided, that will do.

Sleep well. I will (in the spare room).

Tomorrow I turn 37.

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18 boiled eggs

Today, at the lagoon (maybe that’s how the next week’s blog posts will all start)… Anyway, today at the lagoon, I saw a family with 18 boiled eggs for snacks. I know there were 18 because they had placed them back in the carton. I’m not judging it. I respect it. As a family (the Thomases) we are boiled egg people – egg mayonnaise for padkos people. Still, even we have never boiled 18 eggs for any one day.

When Jess and I first started dating, we met up with one of my very good friends who said to Jess (I forget why it came up): “You obviously know how many eggs Lara eats”.

It was the first Jess had heard of it.

In those early days of our relationship, Jess was studying for her finals, and the stress and the nerves meant that she had lost most of her appetite. A loss of appetite has never afflicted me (my mom says that Thomases are guzzlers). In those early days, one house always wins out and in our case it was Jess’. I was buying my on-repeat ingredients of hummus, eggs, halloumi, basil but then spending so much time at Jess’ that I wasn’t eating any of it. I wasn’t eating at Jess’ either. And so, as I fell in love, I also starved and I ate a lot less eggs and so my penchant for eggs was only revealed a little later when I explained to Jess that I needed a lot more food than her.

But this story is not the story of Jess and I falling in love, this is a story about the 18-eggs-for-snacks family on the beach. A member of that same family had a bow and arrow. You’re probably imagining a toy. This was not a toy. It wasn’t a compound bow but it was as professional and hardcore as a bow can look without being a compound bow. This was a proper bow. Do I need to emphasize that more? A bow bow. There was also a pile of arrows.

Two elderly people sat in chairs watching the kids playing. Mr Bow and Arrow took advantage of the captive audience, demonstrating how best to shoot an opponent that is at very close range. It is not straightforward. Literally – he shot the arrow from behind his back into the sand.

This I judge.

Not long after this demonstration, we packed up and made our way off the beach to the car park (it bears mentioning that we didn’t leave for fear of being shot – we left because Kit got cold. Only when I reached the tar, did I remember my slops in the sand. I handed Jess the car keys so she could get Kit settled in the car and then retraced my steps. As I slid on my shoes, I heard a man say, “That’s so frustrating”.

I thought Mr Bow and Arrow was talking to someone in his egg party but then he added, “Having to come all the way back just for your slops”.

What a nice man, I thought.

(Photograph of the day is at the top. Jess with freckles; Kit recovering from lagoon life.)

 

 

 

 

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Running a Sanctuary

Framed photographs cover the one wall in my parents’ home in Plett. Kit stares up at them and most days, once of us picks her up so she can see them properly and we tell her who is who in her family. Some of the photographs are old. We point to a four-year old boy (or thereabouts) and tell her it’s her grandfather. We point to a little blonde girl with a fringe and a bob sitting on her grandmother’s lap and we tell her that that little girl is her “Momo”. That’s me. I’m Momo, which is a story for another day.

Today, I heard my mom telling Kit about another photograph: “That is your great grandmother, skinny dipping at Londolozi. So you see, skinny dipping goes way back in your family”.

Cut to this afternoon: Kit, naked, running in the lagoon on an overcast day. At the beginning of the trip to the lagoon she had a cozy on. She also had an immediate friend, which is a win in any context but for a 13 month old baby, it’s thrilling. Her new friend, almost four year old, approached in her round lilo, announcing that Kit could fit on too. When Kit couldn’t master the mount, she ran off to get a smaller floatation device: A blow-up penguin. This, too, Kit struggled with. Kit doesn’t like to be restricted (by hands holding hers) and certainly not by a tight circle of taught plastic, even if it does look like a birdie. No problem, her new friend, Annie, had other toys. She instructed Kit to follow her where she revealed a trove of toys: Helicopters, surfers, multiple spades…Really good stuff.

After some time with Annie, Jess decided Kit was cold. She thanked Annie for her lagoon hospitality and brought Kit back to our spot on the sand. I made the error of taking Kit back into the water to try get some sand off her legs. Kit took the gap and tried to make a run out of it, or at least a side-ways wipe out into the water – to her delight. Another swim session ensued before we got Kit dry and warm.

Charlotte, the bride that I’m doing a ceremony for on Saturday mentioned to me, when the wedding forecast came up, that her dad says of the Garden Route, “If you don’t like the weather, wait five minutes”. It proved true at the lagoon. The sun made an appearance and with it, we lost our desire to keep Kit from the water. Off came her clothes.

A group of older children huddled at the water’s edge, digging a moat, building a bridge, finding crabs to populate the abode. A lot of time, voting and town planning went into the project. As we were packing up our things to head home, I heard one of the children say to another, “It’s tough running a crab sanctuary”.

Photograph of the Day: 5 January 2023. That piece of sand – resting between the green and just before the the stair rail – is one of my favorite shapes in the world. On the left of the dune, before you reach the steps, rest the ashes of my grandparents, both sets, and of our dog, Shadow.

 

 

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Salt and tissue salts

The socks are no longer safely in the cupboard. Rain came this afternoon, and Jess and I like to be cosy and we like to wear socks and I noticed, this evening, that we both had a beautiful pair on this evening and said as much.

Jess’ response: “One of my pairs has been stolen”.

This accusation caused me wild laughter. And when my laughter subsided, I was left with a sense of vindication. Already, Jess’ 5 pairs are dwindling.

Jess continued, “I put the pair in a very specific place and they’re no longer there”.

I had nothing to do with the disappearance of the socks. I’m typing in the dark (my daughter is sleeping next to me) and I just used my phone light to check that my socks have an L on them, not a J. L it is.

Some of you may have picked up on the, ‘my daughter is sleeping next to me’ bit. To you, I say, “Stop”. Stop thinking that she should be in a cot, or asking, “Is she waking you or are you waking her?” Stop it. Actually, it’s fine. You can think it, of course. Of course. Please  just don’t say those two words – sleep train – near me. I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want to speak about it. I don’t want to consider a gentle version. Jess and I have made several resolutions not to speak to anyone about our lack of sleep because naturally, people have a solution and we’ve heard them and some of them we’ve tried and tried, and some, we have vowed to never try. So why do I raise it here? Because if I am going to write every day of the year and share it here, I can’t possibly bypass the fact that I am sleep deprived. I was going to write severely sleep deprived but then I took the adjective out. Now, I change my mind – it’s accurate. Severely. Did I mention that I don’t get much sleep?

The reason I wanted to mention the sleep thing is so that you know that I’m tired. That’s the end of the story.

No, I wanted to mentioned it so that I could speak about tissue salts. Don’t worry, I don’t sell them. My mom, Moira stands by them and she has the Bible of tissue salts at the ready. The name of the book – dubbed as of right now, the Bible – escapes me but those who know tissue salts, know the book I’m talking about – there’s a flower on the front; there’s definitely some purple involved and it’s on a white background.

Some believe that tissue salts – which are homeopathic – are just sugar pills and do not work a smidge. They do not believe in homeopathy at all and they will tell you this as they slug their rescue remedy and rub arnica on their sore limbs. Sjoe, this post is covering some controversial topics: Sleep training, homeopathy … and I think referencing “the Bible “when it’s not the Bible is probably as my headmistress used to say, “An absolute no no”. But back to the tissue salts…

Moira is a fan. She will consult the Bible for a vast array of symptoms. Irritability – take 8 on the hour, every hour (don’t actually take 8 – I just cited the first number that popped into my head – this is not Moira’s advice nor the Bible’s). Struggling to sleep? Take two of all the even numbers – 2,4,6,8, every 15 minutes, until you’re asleep (it’s the homeopathic version of counting sheep).

When I picked up Kit for bed, Moira had placed 3 of the pink tissue salt bottles next to the lamp by the stairs. She casually mentioned them – “they’re there if you want them”.

I have nothing against tissue salts. I was brought up on the stuff. And so, Moira doctored Kit’s bottle before bed. If she sleeps well tonight, I will take a photo of the Bible. My three readers will rush to get it and it’ll be sold out, nationwide.

Coming to the end of this post, I regret not writing about the fact an old school friend on the beach today, who only just met Kit, commented, “Long eyelashes like you”. (I have really long eyelashes. People tell me this fairly often – as the owner of the eyelashes, you’re never quite aware of just how long they are). Kit does have a strong eyelash game (a stronger eyebrow game – sherbet, those are some good eyebrows). The thing is, I have nothing to do with Kit’s eyelash length or incredible eyebrows. I corrected the friend, saying, “Yes, like Jess'”. Later, Jess told me to rather claim it.

The next time someone comments on her lashes, I will flutter mine (causing a light but pleasant breeze) and say, “How could she not?”

(Today’s photograph appears at the top. It was slim pickings on my SD cards and, if I’m honest, I nearly cheated and posted one from a couple of days ago. I didn’t. What I like about Jess’ shoes is the sand and that we went straight from the beach to the bath and then to socks, and that all of it was together.)

 

 

 

 

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Giving rocks

Near the end of our walk around the Plett burbs today, Kit refused to be in her hiking carrier anymore (yes, we were using a hiking carrier for a very relaxed walk and yes, my wife told me that people would judge me for it being overkill but I like the way the hiking carrier allows me to carry some of the weight on my hips rather than in the front like a traditional carrier and so hiking carrier it was). I don’t care if people judge me about the carrier. Really. But hypetetically, if I was embarrassed by it… You know what would be even more embarrassing than carrying your child in a hardcore hiking carrier for a casual stroll? Carrying an empty hardcore hiking carrier on a stroll while your one year old practices her slope walking on the lawn verge.

Our return walk became very slow, what with Kit wanting to walk on the road rather than the grass, and us having to shepherd her back to the lawn. And it may have been due to this pace or Jess may have very good eyes (she doesn’t, her glasses are a signature look) – but Jess noticed a rock in a flower bed. Picking it up, she saw that on the back of it was a message: Post a pic and tag us on Insta. Rehide. I won’t share the handle here for reasons that shall become clear soon.

Before bed tonight, I mentioned the rock to my dad. I picked it up and showed it to him and, doing so, noticed that the rock had been painted on (I initially thought the rock was naturally marked like that). My dad seemed indifferent to the find. Disinterested even. He said, “I found one the other day on the beach.”

“What did you do with it?” my mom asked.

“I left it there,” he said.

“Why?”

“They should be arrested,” he said, completely seriously.

“Arrested for what?” I asked, in hysterics.

“For defacing beautiful things”.

You see, my dad has somewhat of a Marie Kondo belief about certain inanimate objects. Marie, for those that don’t know, encourages you, among other things like putting things back in their place, to thank your jacket for keeping you warm before lovingly hanging it back and placing it the cupboard. When I write this, I’m not mocking it. I’m with Kondo – or at least, the idea doesn’t seem absurd to me.

How is my dad like Kondo?

Today, after my brother’s kayak, my dad commented that the kayak was very happy.

“Why?” my brother asked.

“Because you took it into sea”.

Today’s rock isn’t the first rock that my dad has had strong feelings about. Once on the Otter Trail, he saw that a group of hikers had taken rocks from a rock pool and used it to prop up their grid for their braai. He carried the rocks back to where they were found. When someone asked him why, he said that the rocks were much happier there.

Another instance: He made the new owners of our Johannesburg home (where my mom and dad lived for close to 30 years) promise that they would clean the rock bird baths regularly. I say regularly. If it was up to him, he would’ve insisted on daily. Here, in Plett, his new home, he does exactly that. He cleans the one on the beach path every. day. He then fills it with fresh water. The birds come. And the birds are grateful for the clean water. How do I know? Because of how many come and how often. He told me the other day that he found a beautiful yellow feather on the rock where a weaver had been.

Here’s the photograph for today (it’s a little of a cheat because my dad took this photograph but I had to run defense… steering Kit away from the waves, catching her (most of the time) when she was heading face first into the shallow water, telling her to ran to her grandad.)

 

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Each Day

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Two years ago a friend of mine took a photo every day for a full year. It was beautiful to witness the growth in her simple pursuit – the intimacy of the daily practice. I want to do the same, only with writing and photographs. Why do I want to write? I haven’t written in a long time. But here I am, on 1 January 2023, doing it again and I can’t promise it will be good. I mean some days, it’ll definitely be bad. And I can’t promise that some days it’ll be more than a few sentences but I can promise I will do it.

The same friend I mentioned earlier (the one that took a photograph every day of the year) asked me in late November 2022 if we could each take a photograph of each other’s families for the upcoming Christmas. I didn’t get to it, which was totally on me because in the rush that was 2022 – I just didn’t follow up with her. That was one of the themes of my 2022 (along with sleep deprivation): I ran out of time. I rushed. I spread myself too thin. And so I’m taking back some time to breathe. To write. To look at the world differently through my lens. To really look. Again, I can’t promise good photographs. Only photographs.

While I’m at it, maybe I’ll throw that Christmas photo into the mix of 365 days of writing and photographs. It can be a kind of swan song … a little less than year from now: The three of us, Kit (who will be two then), Jess and I. Maybe my tummy will show the first signs of our second child. Maybe it won’t. Time will tell. And so will I, right here.  Hopefully we (and here I mean Jess and I) will look a little less tired in the lead up to Christmas 2023). For the record, Kit, who is 13 months now, is not tired. Kit is feisty and already (to my surprise) shakes off hands that try to help her up steps from the deck to the garden or that try to steer her away from table top corners. Kit is ready to go. Ready to waddle to get her ball and choose a book and run with pure delight to a trio of children that clearly believe she is too young to play with them. She is game to run down sand dunes into the turquoise of the lagoon with no abandon. She does it, again and again, even after face-planting.  I want some of that for myself. That unabandon-ness. That repeat after the face-plant.

Before I get ahead of myself, let me slow down and not try tell you everything at once. There is time. It’s only 1 January 2023 and this writing and this photographing will be a marathon not a sprint. And that’s really why I’m posting this now: I’m good at sprints – not great at marathons. And so I need to write this and post it and try hold myself to it, so that I can change; so that this writing and this practice and this year will cause a shift. I need one.

Last year, we ushered 2022 in with a colic-ky (what is colic even?) five or six hours of brutal crying from Kit. The whole year seemed to take its note from that beginning. A bit out of our control. At the whim of teeth coming in and flu hitting and chasing our tails. But this 31 December was gentler with us (still, the sleep deprivation but a lot less crying). Maybe the whole year will follow suit. Suite? I think it’s suit.

2023 – hello – be good to me; to us. I will be the same to you. I will safeguard you. I will not give in to the urge of filling every hour of you with seconds run, despite what Kipling encouraged. No. I will take my time and I will pitch up here, every day. I will write. And I will take a photograph to remind me that this time and this year is fleeting but it does not need to be chased. This writing and these photographs will invite me to stop – to remember that flowers smell good and there is nothing I love more than to swim in wild water.

Here’s that photograph.

Kit in her car seat, en route to the golf course for a walk. St Francis. 13 months. 1 January 2013

 

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