28th February, 2010

Dear Reader

A full moon is trying to peek through a patch of cloud as I look out my window, propped up in bed with pillows, while the clock ticks towards midnight. One of my favourite singers, Carole King, is keeping me company, by singing on her In My Living Room album, and I have rediscovered all my old music, which I had put aside in favour of Han’s music as he loved to play guitar and sing to his favourites.  I loved hearing him play, but there didn’t seem enough time for me to sit and listen to my music.  I am enjoying this special time immensely now.   I also love my simple bed with its fluffy pillows and hand painted bedcover which was painted by a friend to celebrate her 40th birthday.  It is forty women on a beach, one for each year of her life, and I love the freedom she captures in each figure.  Forty is a good age, but so is fifty three!  I feel I am opening a new, exciting chapter in my life, which wouldn’t have happened if I had stayed in my former life.  In the past, women in their fifties were counting down to retirement, already considered old by society, and passed their use-by date.  Their clothes were dowdy, and their days of serving the family had ended.  They were like discarded relics, biding time with their knitting till they breathed their last. I feel very blessed to have my health, my wonderful family and friends around me, and the potential to explore so much more of myself and the world, a newly found freedom as displayed on my bedcover!

This past weekend was a good example of taking each opportunity which presented itself to me, and enjoying it to the full.  On Saturday morning, I awoke to a glorious morning, with the harbour as still as a millpond, and the sun stretching its rays across the trees, flicking its light on the leaves, and spreading its warmth over the garden.  I went out to water my plants, and heard the sound of a skill saw, usually a grating, irritating noise early in the morning.  However, my face broke into a smile, and my body into a run as I rushed down to find my builder back on site, constructing the deck around the shed so that Jan can make it his new home.  Jan is going to live with his father until the studio is finished, and I know he is eager to move into his very own space.  I think every young man would like to have their own pad, with parents across the road where he can go for meals!

On Friday night, I arrived home late from visiting my daughter Jo, but decided to make bread, and kneaded the dough so that I could cook it on Saturday morning. I was pleased I went to the effort, as I could serve it to the builder, and another neighbour whom I invited for lunch.  The neighbour is very outgoing, but is always reluctant to accept an invitation to someone else’s home, but I was delighted when she walked up my lawn and sat in the sun to have lunch.  I served a Korean beef and noodle dish, and of course I served my bread with dukkha ( a Middle Eastern mix of herbs and nuts,) and olive oil for dipping. I love eating al fresco.

After lunch, and having finished mowing the lawns in the hot sun, I had a quick shower before heading off to see friends who have just built a new crib in Otakou, about ten minutes up the peninsula. The land is Maori land, so they can only buy the lease to the property, not the land, but the lease is renewable.  They feel confident that they will be able to lease the property for a very long time as they have invested a lot of money into the building of their house, although if the worst came to the worst, they could relocate it.  I followed the directions I had been given, and drove along the unsealed Otakou golf course road till I found their piece of paradise.  I drove up a sandy drive to find their crib right on the water, and when Colin and I hugged, my sizzling hot skin touched his cool body, having just come out from a swim in the sea.  He was so excited to be able to launch himself into the sea from his back yard that he immediately threw himself into the inviting, but chilly, water. This is not the behaviour one expects of a QC, (Queen’s Council lawyer,) a usually formally attired leading barrister who takes on difficult criminal cases. His wife, Marilyn, was out on her new kayak, and it was good to see them both so happy.  They have a son who has special needs, and I get on so well with this young man who is obsessed with taxis and planes.  A virus in his first year of life robbed him of the ability to function as we do, and his parents and sister are saints in the way they care for him.  We sat under the umbrella, sipped wine, and ate delicious food, while we caught up on each other’s lives, never taking our eyes off the magnificent view.  It really is paradise.

On returning home, I just had time to put another loaf of the freshly baked bread in my basket, make some fruit cocktails which I carried in a bottle, and took them over to a dear neighbour who had invited me for dinner.  Although I have known her for nineteen years, having met the first Christmas I spent with Han in our home in Portobello, we had never had dinner together without our husbands.  My friend’s husband was out of town on business, and although they had guests staying as they run a divine bed and breakfast business, Ana invited me for dinner.  Their house is on a point and has spectacular views of the harbour. The table was set for two, and we sat out on the verandah and looked out over Pudding Island, this time my view was from a higher aspect than the afternoon position, but equally as stunning.  We drank the cocktails I had made, and then moved in to the table where we ate beautiful smoked salmon, fresh salad, and the bread I had made.  The pinot gris wine she chose was a perfect match, and we ate a leisurely meal before retiring to the lounge for coffee and liqueurs.  I felt I was in seventh heaven, and I didn’t leave for home till after midnight.  Having spent so many years with Han, I had got out of the habit of socialising with people on my own, and I really enjoy it.  It is very different socialising with someone when you are not in a couple, and although I found it difficult at first, really missing Han, I have now become much more comfortable in my own skin.  It is a good feeling.

This morning, I was awoken by the telephone, and my second daughter, Nicky, asked if they could come round for an early cuppa.  I was delighted, but surprised that the reason was because they had received a text from a friend with the news that there was a tsunami warning in place for the east coast of New Zealand! Their house is right on the harbour, and at sea level, so they are right in the path of any big waves, should a surge come in the wake of a tsunami.  I turned on National Radio, and heard the reporters trying to make a story out of people still walking their dogs along the road near the beach, trying to hide their disappointment that the tsunami actually hadn’t come!  That is a little unfair, but you could tell they really wanted to report a story, and they just didn’t have one.  However, there was a story to be reported in Chile, the country which has been devastated by the ravages of the biggest earthquake in a century, measuring 8.8 on the Richter scale.  As I recall, Karina and Chris were in Chile this time last year, celebrating their wedding with Karina’s Chilean family and friends. My heart went out to her this morning when I rang her, and I could hear the pain in her voice as she said her country and its people had been thrown into chaos. An earthquake prone country, Chile’s buildings and infrastructure are much stronger than those in Haiti, although all countries have a better infrastructure than poor Haiti, and therefore the death toll is not as high as one would have expected from such a massive earthquake.  The pain is still as deep though. This morning, after a sleepless night trying to track down family, Karina’s tired voice echoed what so many Chileans will be feeling, “My country is so sad.”

I feel guilty saying that my morning passed happily with Nicky, Colin and my two grandchildren, Ella and Jade.  I had loved looking after Jade on Friday morning, the first time I had looked after him on his own, and it was so cute to see the two of them lying in the hammock strung between the cabbage trees in the garden.

In the afternoon, I celebrated my three-year old grandson’s birthday in town with the other grandparents, an interesting collection of relatives!  My son in law’s father remarried, so John was there with his wife, and John’s first wife, Andy’s mother, was also there with her husband.  Han was there with his new partner, Maggie, and I wonder if you are confused! And from yesterday, they are now permanent neighbours, having moved the last of Maggie’s possessions out of her house which she is renting for the year.  I am loath to use the word “permanent,” as what is ever permanent?  I thought my marriage was. However, I made a promise when I sat and reminisced with Ana last night, that I was not going to talk about my relationship with Han, but end the chapter, and close that book tightly shut. I am not writing a new book, and it feels good.  To go over the past brings nothing but heartache, and negativity only breeds negativity.  On with the positive!!

In my positive frame of mind, I mowed the grass on the lower section today.  I love feeling fit and stronger, and I look forward to using the weed eater one day after work. 

I used to listen to Carole King when I lived in Egypt, and it is funny how some songs just hit you. 

An abridged version of the words is:

Stayed in bed all morning just to pass the time

There’s something wrong here, there can be no denying

One of us is changing, or maybe we just stopped trying

But it’s too late, baby, it’s too late

Though we really did try to make it

Something inside has died, and I just can’t fake it.

It used to be so easy living here with you

You were light and breezy, and I knew just what to do

Now you look so unhappy

And I feel like a fool

But it is too late, baby, it’s too late……..

There’ll be good times again for me and you,

We just can’t stay together, can’t you feel it too?

But I am glad for what we had and how I once loved you

And how I once loved you.

Knowing that Han is living in the home that I found, and is sharing it with another woman isn’t easy, but I have accepted it, and

I am glad for what we had and how I once loved him. 

So much for not mentioning the relationship again!  Let this song be the positive affirmation  that “it it’s too late, baby, it’s too late, darling,” and it is all fine.

This afternoon, I picked Shahan up, and took her up to the birthday party. I am so lucky with the wonderful relationship I have with all my children. On Friday, I popped up to Jo’s with a bottle of wine, and it was good to relax with her after work.  The night before, I cooked a big dinner for Jan and me, as I love sitting down with him and finding out about his day.  He is so busy at the moment and I am so proud of his motivation.  Being selected at sixteen years of age for the under 10 Otago basketball team is an honour, but also involves a lot of commitment.  He is doing this on top of a heavy work load at school, and working part time as his sister, Jo’s café. It was good for Jan and me to talk over dinner then retire to a couch each where we talked for another couple of hours.  I never take this time we share for granted.   I love hearing his views on economics and life in general.  We talked of Tiger Woods, and although I haven’t followed the media circus and his staged apology, I said that I didn’t need an apology, only his wife did. However, Jan made the valid point that many young people looked up to him as their role model, and he had shattered their dreams.  As an aside, and I didn’t say it to Jan, but I do feel that diagnosing his philandering as “sec addiction,” is a little rich.  He was playing the field, as a famous, fit man can do, and got caught!

Continuing my wonderful connection with friends and family, tomorrow night, oldest son, Scott and partner, Anna are cooking dinner for Shahan, Jan and me, and it will be lovely to go out to Brighton again. Shahan lived out there with Scott and Anna when she first returned from China, and I often took her home, so I knew that coastal road well, even getting a speeding ticket on that road which unpredictably, and seemingly randomly, changes its speed.  Don’t get me started on my inability to understand the rationale of speed limits!

On to a more interesting, and much more positive note, I would like to say that it was wonderful to go out to the airport twice, and pick up a Japanese and then a Brazilian student for the school.  When I went out on Friday, the weather was glorious and Saudi Moaz and German David came with me.  They were hilarious, and I loved their sense of humour, although it may have been lost on the very tired Japanese traveller!  While I was waiting at the airport tonight, I wondered how many passengers I would know, or recognise, and sure enough, there were about four people whom I knew. However, there was one passenger who smiled at me, and I looked round to see who he was smiling at.  I then realised it was me, and smiled back.  Till this moment, I can’t think where I had seen him before, and yet I am sure that we had a conversation at some time, not that long ago.  It is unusual for me to not remember where I met someone, and I have been wracking my brain since that interchange.  It isn’t important, but I do wonder about my memory at times.  I think my hard drive is becoming full, and needs to be defragged!  Last weekend, I talked to a builder whose mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s at the age of fifty, and his father has looked after her for twenty -five years.  Her body is fit and healthy, but she is just a living shell.  My friend, whom I had dinner with last night, said that her beautiful mother has the same illness, but she is still able to communicate.  Her problem is she has no ability to do anything sequentially, so can not longer cook the exquisite meals she used to create. Alzheimer’s is a disease that is so cruel for the loved ones who are left to look after those afflicted with the curse.  I would like to think that I will burn out before then, and I probably will.  It is so important that we keep our brains active, so that we remain brain fit, in the same way as we should look after our bodies. 

……..

1st March, Monday

I finished writing the above at one o’clock this morning, and it is now Monday morning and I am about to go into class and teach for Amber as she has a migraine.  Poor thing.  I hope you said, “a pinch and a punch for the first of the month. No returns!” This will give you good luck for this wonderful month!  Have a great week, and see you soon.

Love, Sharron