With Friends like These

A woman can go into labour at any time and know that there is no looking back, no looking forward. Just doing the work that needs to be done to bring a new person through her into the world.

These friends planned a wonderful blessing way for me, complete with roses, poinsettia, laughter, love, wee gifts, Alison Krauss, plaster and henna. Susan is holding the results of the casting. Later perhaps we will have a photo of the 'bowl' that came of the bump. Left to right you see Gill, Nicole, Maria, Susan, Roisin, and Cary, all of whom have been present in their own way on my mothering journey over the past 10 years.

Gill started off with the henna. This was the one sanctioned time in the past 8 weeks when I was allowed to forget about OFP and spend a half hour reclining on the sofa! The baby either liked it or didn't, depending on how one reads the constant roiling and kicking. The elephant is not visible but it is there, just to the right in the photo below, looking as if it had finally been given a proper habitat.

Don't you wonder who is inside there? You shouldn't have but a few more weeks to wonder. Octavia still says it is a baby sister but the rest of us, we're not so sure...

Baddies

Tomorrow afternoon is another session with Alex and Octavia. I am looking forward to eavesdropping. Last week we walked all the way from Ormeau Park to our house, through the shortcut of the Grammar School, and they chattered away. We travelled a good pace for about 7/8 of the journey but as soon as we got to Knock Eden Park they lost momentum. Stopping to pick leaves from the privet hedges, smash windfall crab apples, comment on neighbourhood cats. It was less entertaining than usual because I really needed to get to a powder room.

They were about 2 driveways behind me messing with a hedge and looking at "fancy cars" when a car drove up and wanted to get into the driveway. While I was trying to chivvy them along they stood there staring at the guy driving, clearly in no rush to make his life easy. Once they moved on he revved it into the drive.

"Monkeys, it is a good idea when a car is coming at you to get out of a driveway," says I. "Yeah, Alex, so you don't get deaded," commented Octavia.

"I didn't, Octavia," he pointed out. "I didn't get dead."

Well, they didn't get dead but when they got home several of the 'baddies' who were involved in their brick-built farm did. They got dead with swords and even by pinching. Human nature rears its ugly head. I hope tomorrow is a more peaceful, kinder sort of a day with O and A.

A Tisket, A Tasket

The weekend was my big treat for the year. I spent 2 days at the Ulster Folk Museum on a willow basketry course. In the photos below you will see the base and uprights of my basket and a bit of the weaving. The finished project is a special gift for a special day for a special someone, so I won't post a photo. Rest assured, it looks like a woven willow basket.

Nad, if you are reading, close your eyes for the next sentence. We used traditional tools, among them pig grease for inserting new willow into tight spaces. Okay, Nad, you can open your eyes again. I wasn't keen on the pig grease but found that it wasn't smelly and if I didn't really look at it I might have mistaken the feel of it for shea butter or some other plant product. Yes, Nad, I suppose one could use shea butter or coconut oil but it was hard to come by these greases in Ulster in the early 1900s.

While I was wrecking my thumbs because thumbs do the work in willow weaving, I sat before a window enjoying the beech leaves and thinking about basketmakers who used to weave day in and day out. Some still do but rarely do they make 'a living' doing it. I saw a basket the same style and size as mine a couple days later at a hardware shop on the Lisburn Road. £14.99. Now, I paid around £60 and 10 hours for the pleasure of learning the craft. According to Bob, the fabulous basketmaker who was teaching, he can turn one out in about 4 hours. So, if Bob made that basket he could expect to be paid just less than £3.75 per hour [$5.60] as a MASTER basketmaker. That is, if he grew and harvested the willow himself and sold direct to the person needing a basket. Add in a middle person and he'd probably be making less than £1.50 [£1] an hour.

Anyway, as you can see I came out of the weekend with chapped hands, the smell of wet willow fresh in my memory, and a renewed sense of the importance of valuing the work of craftspeople all over the world. I don't quite know how I am going to manage to weave that willow coffin I've been talking about for a decade or more now--perhaps just make the same kind of basket, just really tall?--but I will definitely be pleased to know that I haven't cheated any master crafter!

The Inner Mind

from "A Lament for the Makers" by Anne Stevenson
But now it's here,
the season of deciduous souls,
gold smouldering to umber

when the sun illuminates
briefly that reredos of beeches
with Byzantine fire.

A last, late finger of grace
still brightens far reaches
of a barbarous empire

lyrically and lovingly.
Most of what we write
time will erase.

I just finished my certification review papers for HypnoBirthing. The writing is not nearly as lovely or as lyrical as these words by Stevenson. Concentrating so hard on the power of the subconscious mind for several hours today, I forgot all about my own Inner Mind. I told Scott at dinner time that I felt low. Maybe just the hard work of growing a baby? The news that Republican splinter groups are recruiting (and we aren't talking about Sarah Barracuda)? The thought of a doula colleague accompanying clients to a Caesarean birth for their breech baby tomorrow? A full day of indigestion?

No, these things are not the cause. The cause is that today is November 10, and I miss my mama. She was born on this day in 1950 in Butte, America. Her birthday was always associated with a bit of sadness for me, falling as it does next to Veteran's Day/Remembrance Day and Armistice Day. It isn't the same as a birthday, for example Noah's, that happens when the tulips are popping up and Easter hope lifts us above our human failings. Or even my own that falls in the dark of winter, with all the sparkling stars and perfectly shining snow to show that light will overcome. The November birthday is one that is clearly there amidst the human strife, the pain of life, and dying leaves.

I wouldn't have you think that I am drowning in alligator tears. No, many happy images float past the aperature of my conscious mind now that I am aware of what I was living today. The pig squealing free round the garden with a slippered Mary Beth in pursuit, the clicking of her knees as she ran her miles while I cycled alongside, her penchant for hooded sweatshirts. My mother was the original hoodie.

Obviously, Inner Mind was celebrating and memorializing this morning as I chose a far-less-than-flattering brown hooded sweatshirt handed down to me by a friend who shrunk it. I have even been wearing the hood, and my slippers, and considering how, if heartburn weren't a real concern, an amaretto coffee would be just the swill.

Little Surprises

On Sunday the sounds of a distracted Hemingway woke me. Thump, thump, thump on the keys and then a break. Thump, thump, thump. Consciousness clarified that it was Noah in his room above me, typing away.

Day 2 of willow basket weaving at the Folk Museum awaited so I mosied down to get some breakfast and, like a virtuous and credit-crunched family woman, pack my leftover squash soup for lunch. The soup flask was easy enough to find, PTB (that's Praise to Buddha in case you aren't familiar with the abbreviation) , but I was surprised at its contents.

Even while Octavia rejoiced at the recovery of the lost markers she'd been moaning about all week, Hemingway's ghost tottered down the stairs to join us with the creative endeavour in hand.

Hard maths (that is the British/Irish-English for Math, for all you Americans) are not my idea of a nice little surprise at 8 of the morn on a Sunday, but I sidestepped the work and relished the stories of the problems.

The last question, especially, tickled my fancy as there are so many ways to read the parenthetical statement:

A bank has 9,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000£. IF there were a roberey and 2,000,000 were stolen, how much would be left? (From the managers point of view)

I couldn't bring myself to work with those kind of numbers but I was interested to wonder whether Noah was trying to steer us away from thinking of our own savings being stolen, or if he meant how much did the manager think he'd lose personally after the security breech was reported? Or maybe Noah was imagining being the so-called Rober and how much money he might have if he robed 2,000,000,000? In any case, an interesting hard maths problem considering the constant news on the radio about money, lost money, stolen money, who ended up with the money, and of course, bank managers.... This all before he listened to Go For It on Sunday and heard that some bank managers had been very naughty.

The world is full of little surprises.

Elves Get Working Early

when they have a baby brother or sister on the way during Advent. No secrets are being revealed here but you might enjoy the workshop atmosphere. Full-sized rolling pins are a bit unwieldy and sticky and toy ones lack heft. O preferes a water bottle.

Noah spent a whack of pocket money on some good-quality paper on which to express his Christmas Cheer. It was hard to invest in paper when there are so many other ways to splurge: hot chocolate, crepes, LEGO, chewing gum. But his better nature won out, encouraged by the security of 12 chocolate bars, 9 lollipops, and 3 miscellaneous items stockpiled in his Halloween haul.

23 seconds peace for the workshop forefolks as the industrious elves lost themselves in the joy of creation. Rocking Horse in the foreground was not made by these elves but looks on happily anticipating the reception of their work.

A Frightfully Good Weekend

Halloween was what you might call unprogrammed at 58 Knock Eden Park this year. Noah had attended the school disco before his midterm break last week, so the day sneaked up on us. At the 11th hour we were in Lisburn for a chiropractic appointment and Noah picked up the frightening mask pictured below. After a pizza (that I swear was made at Butte Silverbow Pizza Parlor and shipped to Pizzarelli's in Lisburn) we tore home and pulled the monkey suit out of storage.

For those of you privileged enough to spend Halloween with 1.5 year old Noah, this photos of Erin's handiwork clothing my handiwork is a blast from the past. The only difference: Octavia is 3! Oh, yeah, it was a teensy bit long on Noah that year but still...he was a big boy. Note Tatie's bag. Empty. Pretty big. By the time we'd worked our way through Mount Merrion Crescent, up Flush Park and over to the Ember it was nearly full. At the Ember there were a few games to delight: pin the tail on the cat, ghost toss, and the traditional apple bobbing. Noah quickly mastered the apple bob. Those swimming lessons this summer paid off!

I was going to post a photo of our friend Gosia here but her mask was far too scary for the general audience. Amazingly enough, Octavia was not fooled nor even much alarmed.

Saturday was busy with the farmer's market at St. George's and my novice attempt at gumbo. I didn't want to rue the attempt so my roux was not as dark as it should have been. Still, the dish was tasty and a good use of the peppers and okra I got on the reduced shelf at the shop midweek. I am less preoccupied with food than with the change of seasons that requires more soups and hot dishes. Scott made a lovely baked dinner today of garden root veg, mashed potatoes with mushroom gravy and veggie roast. For those of you accustomed to fowl, if you perceive chicken, it is veggie roast which has its origins in 'mycoprotein'. Look it up.

The chef (and the kitchen looked like a chef had been at work!) followed the meal with an Applescotch Pie. The blurry bit of my shirt is The Bump, not my bust, trying to overshadow dessert. The only thing that might have improved the dining experience was a roll of easy-off duct tape for certain small chatterboxes who insisted on babbling away at fairly high volume whilst Scott and I attempted to converse and enjoy the autumn leaving blazing out the window.