Wednesday 12 January 2011

Reflections

I have been remiss ...

I used to blog daily ... then every couple of days ... now it seems to be coming down to once or twice a week.  Does that mean I have a life in the here and now?

I miss the reflective nature of blogging when I don't do it regularly.  Just sitting down and thinking about things ... looking back ... pondering ... looking forward ... it is all important to me.  My life seems to become a half life when I don't take the time to reflect.

Lately I have been consumed by preparing meals and teaching.  I need to balance my life again. (God, how often do I have to remind myself to do that?)  Anyway ... this will be a kind of resolutionary blog post ... an attempt to find balance through reflection ...

I have prepared the beginnings of most of the meals I will deliver on the weekend ... a beef stew base that is luscious ...  yogurt breaded pork chops ... a chocolate banana cake.  On Friday night I will dine on salmon the leftovers of which will then become salmon pasta primavera on Saturday when I will also prepare the fixings and the soup, and package and deliver everything.   Between then and now I will pick up any necessary additions like bread and salad makings.

My lesson for today is all ready and in the bag I carry to River Echo.  Three hours of preparation for three hours of teaching this week.  Still too much but at least saner.  We are working on tenses and using the film "Babies" as a base.  If you haven't seen it, do ... four babies ... two from developed countries (Japan and the USA) and two from developing countries where I have worked and come into contact with the nomadic people portrayed in the film ... Namibian Himbas and Mongolian herders.  The first year of the babies' lives is documented.

Kenya and I just got back from a longish walk.  I was going to go skiing this week but discovered one ski boot was filled with ice.  It is is still drying out.  On Friday I will be out with our snowshoeing group ... about two hours of snowshoeing, followed most likely by an impromptu social get together.

One of the things that has occurred since I fell in early December is that I seem to have given myself permission to be lazy.  I quite like it!  I have watched a few good movies ... The Governess ... The Ugly Truth which is predictable and not great, but funny enough in one spot especially, to make me howl with laughter ... My Sister's Keeper which brought tears ... and Baby of the Bride ... another slight film but I liked it.  My favourite lately was Eat, Pray, Love ... I watched it twice ... reminded me of a dear friend who has been ill recently and looks for all the world like Julia Roberts ... and thinks and behaves like the character she plays in this movie.

I have also been reading ... just finished The Matter with Morris ... and have started to read The Sentimentalists ... both about the aftermath of wars in far away places ... Vietnam and Afghanistan.  Not bad ... but not completely riveting either.  But that may be me ... perhaps I am a little scattered just now.

My head still hurts and I suspect from the strange long wriggly lump I can feel that I may have cracked my skull when I fell.  There was no blood but this feels like a healed irregular fissure.  I probably should have it and the warty thing on my eye and the smooth lump behind one ear looked at one of these days.  Some people get grey hair.  I become lumpy. Damn this aging anyway!

And that ... she said ... is that for now.

8 comments:

Barbara Carlson said...

good to have you "back" posting.
We just saw Babies last week -- what a great anthropolological study -- and that naked baby trying to get down from and then back onto that wide fence post was hilarious but kinda frog-like. But what a life-force we posses even at 6-8 months, the determination to do what we want to do! also enjoyed the "lazy" child rearing attidudes of the non-whites. And what immune systems their babies were establishing, eating dirt, etc...
In contract, the white children almost seemed in prisons somehow, sequestered but not free.

Barbara Carlson said...

That's "in contrast"...

Oma said...

Actually, in real life, the Mongolian babies are quite tethered when they are tiny ... at first strapped in tightly in their form of tikanagans ... carried about like little packages strapped to boards ... later tied to furniture so that they cannot gain access to the stove that heats the place. But very early on they are part of the family work unit ... part of the economy ... it creates problems if they want to get an education because of course they move three or four times a year ... and the boys are needed for herding.

Opuwa where the Himbas live is one of the poorest places in the world ... it means "The End" in 3 African languages. People (Namibians) were astounded that I was going to be stationed there. They said, "We don't even go there." The water was undrinkable ... couldn't even be used to wash hair because it was almost chewable. The winds blew dust constantly. (I developed chronic sinusitis while there ... my souvenir of Namibia.) It was a 4 hour ride to the nearest town where there were any medical facilities like a dentist ... and people just suffered until they could get there hitching rides. It was a full day's driving from the capital of Namibia, Windhoek. While I was there a Japanese doctoral student was there studying the Himbas to define them as they defined themselves. She had worked on a similar project with the other truly nomadic group in southern Africa before that ... and said that the Himbas were far closer to their roots than the Kalahari Bushmen she had studied earlier. She was taking a break from living with them because she had become very ill. Obviously her immune system was not as strong as theirs.

Absolutely beautiful people ... very healthy ... both sets of nomads ... living on and with the land seems to do it.

The developed country babies seemed lonelier in some ways and not nearly as independent by the end of their first year. And they needed to be amused by adults ... and became frustrated more easily.

Barbara Carlson said...

What experiences you've had in your life! I am again astonished by the depth of your travels and work in the world.

Oma said...

We all live our lives ... year by year ... day by day ... and when we look back after all those years we find that we have ended up with a rich tapestry of memories created from experience And the long sleeps ... the boring times ... just seem to fade away into the background. But the background colours are also an important part of the picture or pattern of the tapestry. It's really quite wonderful, isn't it?

I think that anyone who tries to really live life as you do, as John does, as most people I know do, end up as they near the end of their lives with tapestries that have wonderful depth, texture and colour.

kingmisha said...

What a wonderful concept: that my life is a richly coloured and textured tapestry. So opposite from the prevailing view that old people's lives are colourless and only shades of grey.

I too have not been posting and when I do it really lacks depth. However, where is it written that we should always be reflective and meaningful? I'll take you as you are, in the moment.

So here it is 2011 and we're being ourselves. Happy New Year!!!

Oma said...

Happy New Year to you too, kingmisha. Nice to have you back from your break to spend time with your family. I hope you have returned to your own life well rested, injected with enough love, companionship, and youthful energy to sustain you through the rest of the winter.

kingmisha said...

I don't know about youthful energy, but I am rested and happy. I'm looking forward to the spring which is coming eventually. The days are growing longer and that's my inspiration.