My mind is shutting down these days - Jamie is waking up before 4am most mornings and sleep is not really happening after that. That means bedtime is having to get earlier and earlier to just be able to function, and therefore time to myself is practically non-existent. I'm taking advice from Erma Bombeck though, and trying to live in each moment, and enjoy it for what it is. It'll all change soon enough.
I have nothing pithy or interesting to say today. I'm just making a note here of the fact that I know the names of all my great grandparents (and therefore the boys great great grandparents). I'm rather unreasonably pleased about that. I'd love to know more, but the generation before that is a bit sketchy. I know one of my great great grandfathers was called Benjamin, and one of my great great grandmothers was a Selena.
One day I'd like to track back further. To find the names perhaps of all the great greats, and then pick a line to go back on. I'm fascinated by genealogy, and think it is such an excellent way to help history come alive. Knowing that a direct ancestor of yours was actually present during what we now think of as dead and buried time, well, that's amazing.
The resources available for researching your family tree are huge, these days. Once again, it's just time that is in somewhat short supply! But I've made a start, with my eight greats, and I'm pleased about that.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Back to the Future
A blogging friend has been writing a book on our university years, those of us who were at Rhodes in the early 1990's. He has been posting drafts and it has made for amazing reading. I've laughed out loud, and I've sat and thought hard, and I've felt more than a bit weepy on occasion. Today I am sitting here, recovering from a nasty lurgy, with an aching hip and tired eyes, and I am thinking of that past. I'm looking at my sons and reminding myself how good it is to be here, in the future some of our contemporaries didn't get to make, a present they are not part of, except in memory.
When you leave home and go away to university, you feel like a grown up. You get given an awful lot of freedom in one fell swoop and this, coupled with the adolescent's belief in their own immortality, can be, shall we say, a trifle dangerous. You drink too much, take too many drugs, snog and sometimes sleep with unsuitable people. Sometimes you find yourself doing all of the above because everyone else is, sometimes it's such fun the first time that you just do it again and again (ah, tequila) and sometimes it is the only way out of a situation you wish you hadn't got yourself into in the first place...
It's a steep learning curve. Add to this the freedom of living away from home, possibly having your own wheels for the first time, and of course, of being surrounded by people brighter, wittier, sparkier and more beautiful than you imagined possible; add to this the freedom to sit up all night talking about your lives, their lives, books, poetry, politics, dreams and ideals... well, that makes for an extremely heady, giddy, gloriously intense learning curve too. And what a time to be a young student at a South African university! The ANC was unbanned, the old order was falling apart and free elections were just around the corner. In the wider world, the Berlin Wall had just recently fallen, and communism was collapsing. The whole world was alive with new possibilities, and we were there, at the nerve centre of it all. Aren't you always, at 18??
Some of us didn't make it. Flew too high, flamed too brightly, burned too fast. John Leahy, jumping from a bridge during boat races, and falling so terribly wrongly... and his body, being pulled from the river 20 minutes later. Matt Jones, climbing onto a stationary train as a prank, accidentally hitting a live wire and all that glory lost...
Too many others, and I was so nearly one of them. It's a bit difficult, sitting here half a lifetime later, at 36, to recapture that sense of the numinous possible. Life in the greater world is just too hectic, just too rushed. We're too tired and, perhaps, too jaded, to appreciate the universe in the way we used to. So, for today, I'm using that ache in my hip as a reminder to be thankful that I'm still here. Older, tireder, still unsure of what I really want to be when I grow up, but here. In the future.
I'm very glad I made it.
When you leave home and go away to university, you feel like a grown up. You get given an awful lot of freedom in one fell swoop and this, coupled with the adolescent's belief in their own immortality, can be, shall we say, a trifle dangerous. You drink too much, take too many drugs, snog and sometimes sleep with unsuitable people. Sometimes you find yourself doing all of the above because everyone else is, sometimes it's such fun the first time that you just do it again and again (ah, tequila) and sometimes it is the only way out of a situation you wish you hadn't got yourself into in the first place...
It's a steep learning curve. Add to this the freedom of living away from home, possibly having your own wheels for the first time, and of course, of being surrounded by people brighter, wittier, sparkier and more beautiful than you imagined possible; add to this the freedom to sit up all night talking about your lives, their lives, books, poetry, politics, dreams and ideals... well, that makes for an extremely heady, giddy, gloriously intense learning curve too. And what a time to be a young student at a South African university! The ANC was unbanned, the old order was falling apart and free elections were just around the corner. In the wider world, the Berlin Wall had just recently fallen, and communism was collapsing. The whole world was alive with new possibilities, and we were there, at the nerve centre of it all. Aren't you always, at 18??
Some of us didn't make it. Flew too high, flamed too brightly, burned too fast. John Leahy, jumping from a bridge during boat races, and falling so terribly wrongly... and his body, being pulled from the river 20 minutes later. Matt Jones, climbing onto a stationary train as a prank, accidentally hitting a live wire and all that glory lost...
Too many others, and I was so nearly one of them. It's a bit difficult, sitting here half a lifetime later, at 36, to recapture that sense of the numinous possible. Life in the greater world is just too hectic, just too rushed. We're too tired and, perhaps, too jaded, to appreciate the universe in the way we used to. So, for today, I'm using that ache in my hip as a reminder to be thankful that I'm still here. Older, tireder, still unsure of what I really want to be when I grow up, but here. In the future.
I'm very glad I made it.
Sunday, October 5, 2008
Whisper, Croak
I haven't been here and written anything for absolutely ages and the reason is that I am ill (sniff sniff). I haven't had a voice since last Tuesday night. I was sitting at the pub for pub quiz when suddenly I couldn't talk anymore. I could croak, sure, but that's not much good during a pub quiz... And since then my voice has been basically absent. Some days I have had more of a sound coming out than others, but yesterday and today have been spent as a mute, to all intents and purposes.
It makes parenting very difficult. I hadn't realised how much I rely on being able to yell at the boys. Get off that! Get DOWN off the burglar guards! STOP headbutting your brother! NO Nicky, NOT the DVD player! (or fridge, or stove or any other miscellaneous item he's not supposed to fiddle with). STOP playing with the washing machine! Leave The Blasted Cat Alone!!!
And just the general instructions and comments needed to get through the day. Hands on the car while I get Nicky out. Hold my hand while we cross this carpark. But you LIKE Big Cook Little Cook, James...
Huff. I haven't been to a doctor yet. I thought about it, but the logistics of taking two small boys with me to the surgery, while Unable To Talk, was just too daunting, so I left it. I'm certainly not going to go today and pay three times usual rate for the audacity to fall ill on a Sunday. Tomorrow, however, I will grit my teeth, tie the boys to my belt with washing line rope, and go and get this seen to. Hopefully they will give me antibiotics and I will get better and reflect that, despite my worries about life in SA, at least I can still see a doctor when I want to and get prescribed medication that will cure my lurgy. I hope.
It makes parenting very difficult. I hadn't realised how much I rely on being able to yell at the boys. Get off that! Get DOWN off the burglar guards! STOP headbutting your brother! NO Nicky, NOT the DVD player! (or fridge, or stove or any other miscellaneous item he's not supposed to fiddle with). STOP playing with the washing machine! Leave The Blasted Cat Alone!!!
And just the general instructions and comments needed to get through the day. Hands on the car while I get Nicky out. Hold my hand while we cross this carpark. But you LIKE Big Cook Little Cook, James...
Huff. I haven't been to a doctor yet. I thought about it, but the logistics of taking two small boys with me to the surgery, while Unable To Talk, was just too daunting, so I left it. I'm certainly not going to go today and pay three times usual rate for the audacity to fall ill on a Sunday. Tomorrow, however, I will grit my teeth, tie the boys to my belt with washing line rope, and go and get this seen to. Hopefully they will give me antibiotics and I will get better and reflect that, despite my worries about life in SA, at least I can still see a doctor when I want to and get prescribed medication that will cure my lurgy. I hope.
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