Red and Black

This is how I want mine, that is how you like yours.

Chilli flakes, lemon, tangy tangy sauce for me. Mild and juicy, plain chicken on rice for you.

I like mine sweet, savoury, bursting with flavour. You like yours safe. Warm. Known. Clean.

I like mine messy, tumbled, piled on a plate. You like yours tidy. Neat. Michelin star.

I like red, you like plain. Red on me, black on you.

You like me, I like you, but the mess gets in between.

I like books, you like films, so I can read while you watch things. Hand on thigh, foot on foot, head on shoulder, reading nook.

I like storms. Rushy wind. Messy hair. Chaos and crayons, bric a brac on a tottering tower. You like calm. Green. Black. Sharp lines, white blinds, no rug and clean chair. Leather. Perfume. Smart shoes.

I like spice, shake it up, hot hot hot.

You are still. Sailing ship. Planning calendar. Secure. Control.

When life is chaos, I am at its helm. Hair streaming in the wind. Face turned to the sun.

You need control. So you break down.

Hold my hand. Sail through the tempest.

Chaos meets chaos.

Storm meets calm.

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Well. I Suppose It’s Christmas

Sometimes I read back on old posts to laugh a bit about how young I was. How NAIVE. This post about Nicholas Sparks’ ‘The Notebook’ had me cackling. Did I genuinely believe an old man would not remember his sexual encounters with the love of his life, during their young love? I didn’t know what love was, back then.

Anyway. I don’t celebrate Christmas. For many many many reasons, of which they are numerous.

This post explains why.

I don’t get hats either. I just get gloomy family gatherings and depression. But that may be because I am suffering from late-onset PPD. It’s either that or SAD… where we all get a little mad and sad and bad this time of year.

I am too afraid to go to the shopping centres to see all the decorations because of the dreaded Omicron. I also don’t relish lugging two kids around all day, and dealing with their layers of clothes and irritation and all the other things that come along with two babies.

I allowed my sister in law to take my son to the museum today. You hear that? ALLOWED? Because previously I was so scared of letting him go anywhere without me, in case something should happen while I wasn’t around. He was fine. He loved it. He had a hot chocolate from his aunty and he didn’t want to know me.

‘Go away mama, I am Aunty’s boy, not Mama’s boy’. See some may feel insecure when they hear that but I know he is Mama’s boy. He knows it too. He is just having the time of his life and being with his Mama is not as fun as getting FULL SUGAR hot chocolate with his Aunty!

I am happy he was happy. It brought me joy to hear his laughter. And to see how well he enjoys the company of his extended family. I missed him but I need to learn to relax and let go.

Merry holidays!

In fact… Merry Carrying On 😀

Fams

A strange thing happens to me when I come to visit family.

I seem to lose all the will to live.

I start to just exist between moments.

It gets so dark and gloomy that I eventually break down, and I don’t know why that is happening.

It mostly happens when I visit my family through marriage.

They are very nice people. But I think I suffered some trauma at their hands. So whenever I come back here, a deep desolation befalls me.

Combine that with ill children and a nasty sore throat… my goodness the floodgates open.

Well. I will be seeing my own family tomorrow, so we will see what delights that will hold.

Love Letters #48

I truly think success is contentment, in whichever shape or form that takes.

For me contentment is dancing around my living room like a maniac making my ten month old bay girl laugh. She is a very smiley child. She has the most beautiful little dimples and she is forever making friends with anybody who so much as looks at her.

Contentment is wearing a tight red dress and red lipstick that I haven’t worn in nearly 3 years for a ‘date night’… in my living room. We ended up watching 15 minutes of a movie and then I was upstairs soothing a baby to sleep and he was upstairs cuddling a toddler who was afraid of ‘the bats’.

Contentment is taking my babies to the library on a Monday afternoon and choosing 8 books to take home. It’s stopping in a cafe amid the drizzly walk home and drinking a hot drink with my two year old boy. He is a wonder to behold. He is so human, with all his flaws and beautiful ways. A piece of art, I think, as he sips his warm milk and leaves a milk moustache on his upper lip, which he then proceeds to wipe away on his clean sleeve. My baby girl babbles away in the highchair, waving a croissant around and laughing at herself.

Contentment is making sliced pickled red onions and having them on a cracker with some cream cheese.

It’s tidying up the house.

It’s somebody popping round for a cup of tea.

It’s baby breath, and the warm sweet smell of a baby who has just woken up from their nap.

It’s a mother’s love, that trickles down the generations, and is felt decades and decades later, in hand-knitted cardigans and the echo of a voice telling me a smile makes the most plain face beautiful.

It’s feeling grateful for warmth at night.

It’s the catharsis of crying.

The ability to have hope that tomorrow will be better.

The gentle sigh, the pages of a book, the taste of tea, the sound of someone typing, the growl of hunger after a long day of physical and mental labour, the ache of loneliness, the prayer, the bright and numerous stars in an icy, black night sky.

What is contentment for you?