It’s been a while since I last posted on my blog. So much has happened that I thought I should start with a quick catch up. I’m sitting in my daughter Kiera’s sunroom (not very sunny mind you – the morning started with a few inches of snow) in Rockville, Maryland. I’ve been here for four months and am due to return to S.A. soon to tie up loose ends before our final move to the U.S. in August. But I’m jumping ahead, so back to the beginning.
Many years ago, when our neighbour bought the farm next door, he expressed an interest in buying our property as well and asked to have the right of first refusal. So, when we decided to put our place on the market in July last year, we informed our neighbour and braced ourselves for some unpleasant and lengthy haggling as he is a notoriously difficult person. However, we were taken completely by surprise by the lack of anticipated argy-bargy and by August we had agreed on a price and by September the deal was done and the farm sold. We moved into a rental in Howick in October and in November I flew to the U.S. to collect my green card, which took three months to arrive. Peter, who is on a different immigration timeline, arrived here at the beginning of February to await the arrival of his card while I return to S.A. at the end of this month. The U.S. government allows you 6 months out of the country on a green card, so I must be back here by August 2024 lock, stock and barrel.
As I’ve mentioned before, the decision to apply for green cards was made during the COVID pandemic when Peter and I managed to get over to the U.S. despite all the obstacles thrown at us by the pandemic and the U.S. government. I can’t remember the exact moment when Peter and I both agreed that it was time to move on. With hindsight, it’s possible to see that there was a succession of occurrences which steered us to that conclusion and it all started with the COVID pandemic. Although it could possibly have been written earlier in the stars when our precious granddaughter was born in 2018.
Up to then, we had been quite content to plod along into old age on the farm with regular visits to and from the kids in the USA. And then shit started to happen, one thing after another but we weren’t really connecting the dots at the time. For a start, the pandemic made travel between S.A. and the U.S. more difficult and our trip in 2021 was a COVID travel nightmare. What if this were to happen again, would we be prevented from spending time with our family? I think it’s fair to say that COVID changed the way we thought about the future and made us anxious about being so far from our family. The thought that a global pandemic could come between me and my children and granddaughter filled me with panic. Also, the negative effect of power outages on the economy and the rising cost-of-living became a niggle at the back of our minds, exacerbated by the July 2021 riots. And then there was a growing concern that the farm was just becoming all too much for us to maintain.
As the financial implications of staying on the farm sank in, so too did the consequences of our social situation. Ever since the COVID lockdown, we had become more and more socially isolated. Our social lives just never went back to the way they were pre-COVID. We stopped entertaining during the pandemic and never resumed it. And we didn’t receive any social invitations in return.
During our trip to the U.S. in 2021, we mentioned some of these issues to the kids and they in turn expressed some of their concerns about us becoming reclusive as well as us living so far away from them as we get older. As observers from a distance, the riots and our isolation had spooked them. Kiera and her husband James very graciously offered us the most precious gift possible, the gift of living together with them as part of a family again. Until then I hadn’t realised just how much I missed that. The devastation of the empty nest was a distant memory; I had moved on. What I did know though was that whenever anything like visas or the pandemic stood between me and my children, primal fear hit me like a ton of bricks. So, in 2021 Kiera began the process of petitioning for us to get U.S. residency with the plan that we would live with them in Maryland once our visas were approved.
Two and a half years after Kiera began the process, I have my green card and Peter’s is being processed. It’s been a long, drawn-out, expensive, frustrating and stressful process. And through it all we have not once spoken to a human being in the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). Our only American human contact was at the U.S. Consulate in Johannesburg where we had to go for our interview and hand over original documents. Thank goodness Kiera and James (our son-in-law, who also happens to be an attorney), were available to advise and support us every step of the way. We could not have done it on our own.
I don’t think that I (aged then in my early 60’s) had a clue as to what I was letting myself in for when we made the decision to emigrate. Yes, I understood the implications at a conceptual level but had absolutely no idea how it was going to affect me emotionally. I knew that leaving the farm was going to be a wrench but I had prepared myself. I had assessed all the pros and cons ad nauseam and knew that even if we didn’t get the green cards, staying at the farm was not feasible due, in part, to escalating costs and increasing isolation. However, I think it’s fair to say that, despite knowing what I knew, it still went ahead and broke my bloody heart.
You know how unhelpful it is when you’re feeling down and some well-meaning person suggests that things aren’t that bad and that there are others far worse off than you? Well, I thought that if I just tallied all that’s positive in my life, it would help me move on. But that only served to pile guilt (for not appreciating what I have) on top of the feelings of sadness.
What I did not anticipate were the feelings of loss. I’ve lost my home and sense of place, and given that so much of my identity was tied to our rural lifestyle, most importantly I’ve lost my sense of self. It feels a lot like the empty nest syndrome all over again but this time it’s me doing the leaving. The thought of starting again, of redefining myself, feels overwhelming. Yes, it is a privilege to be given this opportunity and I am so grateful for it but it’s not going to be easy, not by a long shot. I do appreciate that the only constant in life is change and that when times change, you have to roll with it. However, I just didn’t realise that it’s impossible to roll without getting bruised.
I have learned that if you must leave a place that you have lived in and loved and where all your yesteryears are buried deep, leave it any way except a slow way, leave it the fastest way you can. Never turn back and never believe that an hour you remember is a better hour because it is dead. Passed years seem safe ones, vanquished ones, while the future lives in a cloud, formidable from a distance. The cloud clears as you enter it. I have learned this, but like everyone, I learned it late.
Beryl Markham: West with the Night
A Shropshire Lad, XL by A.E. Houseman
Into my heart an air that kills From yon far country blows: What are those blue remembered hills, What spires, what farms are those?
That is the land of lost content, I see it shining plain, The happy highways where I went And cannot come again.
So, here’s the deal. The property has been sold; my home is no longer mine. It’s all about endings right now, not yet time for beginnings. If I’m honest, I cry all the time, even though this move is what I want. I just feel so adrift. The garden has not been tended to for months and yet everything is in its spring bloom. It makes me think of that song from Camelot when Lancelot sings to Genevieve –
If ever I would leave you How could it be in springtime? Knowing how in spring I’m bewitched by you so? Oh, no! Not in springtime! Summer, winter or fall! No, never could I leave you at all!
The greenhouse is empty, waiting to be dismantled and shipped off to a new owner. There has been no spring planting in the allotment and the BnB has been closed for weeks. All in all, a dismal picture! And yet, there is so much to look forward to. We’ll be moving to a rental in Howick at the end of the month while we sort out our Green Cards and prepare for the Big Move to the USA. The rental is a bit grim but we sold quicker than anticipated and were caught on the back foot – not much accommodation to choose from in Howick, especially when you have two dogs to take into account. I’m trying very hard to be positive. We’re going to start new lives with our family and I’m being given the most wonderful opportunity to live my dream of being a hands-on granny. But right now, it’s all about leaving.
The other evening, as I stood outside watching yet another spectacular sunset over the mountains, I leant against the archway covered with the budding climbing rose I planted so many years ago and wept. And as I did, I pleaded with all my heart for this place to just let me go.
So will I build my altar in the fields, And the blue sky my fretted dome shall be, And the sweet fragrance that the wild flower yields Shall be the incense I will yield to thee.
To Nature by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
When I moved to the country all those years ago, I revelled in living close to nature. The wildlife, vegetation, weather, sunsets; everything inspired me. Outdoors was where I was happiest, my altar was in the fields and I worshipped life under the magnificent sky. I wrote about nature, photographed it, worked my butt off in it and relaxed in it. I delighted in the cycle of seasons here in the Midlands that I didn’t have living in tropical Durban, a one-season-fits-all kind of place. And when the early evening mist came rolling down the slopes of the koppie enveloping the house in its wake, and the fire was lit, I felt a contentment seldom experienced before.
You may sense from the past tense that something has changed and all I can put it down to is an overwhelming feeling of detachment. I hadn’t understood it until the other morning when I was listening to one of my favourites podcasts, Frank Skinner’s poetry podcast. His focus that day was on the poet Selima Hill (she’s brilliant, by the way) and one of the poems he read was called Prayer, a poem about Hill’s partner. At the time, the line: “Please can god or someone come and render him more capable of awe” made me laugh out loud. But as I reflected on the poem, it dawned on me that that’s what I’ve lost, I’ve lost my awe (as well as my oar, but that’s another story!). I just don’t feel as connected to the greater whole as I used to. And I seem to have become insensitive to the wonders and beauty of nature all around me.
After this revelation, I asked myself:
How did I not notice that the camellia outside my bedroom was in full flower?
How did I not have the urge the other evening to lie on the lawn and marvel at the Milky Way overhead?
How did my heart not rejoice in the changing colours of the Liquidambars lining the driveway?
I’m hoping that this is a temporary condition, caused by a combination of factors but mostly the agonising process of deciding to leave here. It’s been a difficult time, not helped by the painfully frustrating visa application process. It preoccupies me all the time. There’s the temptation to focus on all that’s wrong in South Africa (crumbling infrastructure, declining economy, increased crime and lawlessness, daily power outages of up to 11 hours – a result of gross corruption) in an attempt to rationalise the decision to leave. And then there’s the concern that another global pandemic will get in the way of us being with our family thousands of miles away. Taking into account all the pros and cons, I know the decision to be more actively part of our children and grandchild’s life is the right one. But what makes it so heart-breaking for me is here, this place. And that’s why I’ve lost my awe, I’m protecting my heart.
Recently, I listened to another podcast, recommended to me by Kiera called This American Life (episode 792: When to Leave). The presenter summed up the show by saying: “When I first started making this show, I imagined it being about leaving all sorts of places, but it’s all about the same place — home, a place you love. If you’re lucky, you have some choice in the matter and time to think about it. But it’s a choice to break your own heart.”
Yup, that’s exactly what it is, a choice to break your own heart.
Hi, it’s been a while. Are you still there? I hope so!
I’ve been in a bit of a state of inertia ever since returning from the US in February last year. This visit was more stressful than usual, not just because the pandemic made travel difficult but also because we live on a smallholding where it’s not easy to just lock-up-and-go. It made us finally acknowledge that something has to change. Since we want (and need) to be closer to our family during these uncertain times and since Alex and Kiera have no plans to return to SA, we decided to go ahead and apply for American Green Card visas with the hope of relocating to the US in the not-so-distant future. Although being closer to our family is our first choice, we know that there is also a chance we may not get the visas. If that happens, we know the time has come to move on anyway. We’ve become too isolated here and, as the saying goes: no man is an island. We need to be part of a community, especially as we get older. So, whether it’s Rockville or Howick, we shall be leaving this place of my heart.
All we can do now is wait, hence a feeling of being in limbo; not yet there, not quite here. I was really torn in two at the thought of immigrating to the US. I felt sad when I thought of leaving here and I felt sad when I thought of being so far away from my family. It’s a massive decision to make and I was pushed right out of my comfort zone having to make it. I think I was so scared of the unknown that my primal response was not fight or flight, it was freeze. With our future being so up in the air, I struggled to find my footing on the ground and found it very hard to be present, to focus on the here-and-now. I felt like I couldn’t give myself fully to where I am now because I was going to turn my back on it all anyway. How do you keep your heart in one place when you’ve decided to walk away from it? How do you dream about a future that is so out of your control? Is it better to have no expectations than to face disappointment when they aren’t met?
However, after a 3-week visit from Kiera, James and Isla at the end of December / early January, I started to feel a lot more positive about change, whatever form it takes. I’m not feeling quite so intimidated by the future and am committed, once again, to living in the present. So, what’s changed?
Well, I’ve changed my mindset. I’ve created a new story and it’s all thanks to Isla. Yes, Isla is growing up so quickly. Yes, I want to be there for as much of her childhood as possible. Yes, I want to be the best grandma I can be. Yes, I feel rejuvenated in the company of younger people. Yes, I love my kids and want to be closer to them. All this I already knew. But it was Isla who made me reconsider my state of mind and set me straight. It was seeing how she makes sense of the world that made me stop with the negative narrative in my head. She goes into the world every day with such hope and faith that all will be well. She uses her imagination and storytelling prowess to make sense of it all, even the scary and sad stuff. She weaves herself into her stories as the hero with an amazing variety of superpowers, which she’s sometimes happy to pass on to others but, as she informed Peter, “it takes time to transfer.” And when life goes a bit pear-shaped, she throws a wobbly and then moves on.
Isla reminded me that it’s possible to write your own story so I’m throwing caution to the wind and not just changing the immediate narrative about should we stay or should we go, but changing my whole goddam story – a work in progress but it’s about shifting from being scared to excited, sad to grateful, apprehensive to confident, inert to proactive, helpless to having agency, on autopilot to mindful, from procrastinating to moving forward. And, like Isla, when I hit a bump, I’m going to rant and rave, jump up and down and then take the next step, one foot in front of the other, firmly on the ground.
This is me hanging out in the garden with my favourite little person in the whole wide world. There’s nothing quite like shooting the breeze with a 4-year-old whose boundless imagination and capacity for spinning fantastical yarns makes time spent with her totally magical.now, where was I?I command you (photo: James Crosland)Ta-Da (photo: James Crosland)the Secret Garden (photo: James Crosland)bliss is a foot massage from Grumpsgame viewing at Ndaka Lodge, Nambiti Game Reservephoto: Kiera Derman
How time flies is the mantra of the more mature. Days blend into weeks, weeks into months, months into years. At the best of times, it all goes by so fast. However, throw in a pandemic and subsequent lockdown and suddenly my perception of time is completely distorted, is time is going more quickly or more slowly? Well, it’s certainly a blur. The dates of my mother’s death nearly four years ago and Isla’s birth six weeks later are my anchors; these are the dates I go back to in order to measure the time in between, because I have no mental grasp of it. This was the beginning of much emotional upheaval for me – grieving my mother’s death for such a short while before celebrating my grandchild’s birth. And then there was much toing and froing between SA and the USA and the inevitable sense of dislocation after each trip, before Covid put me in my place and America imposed cruel travel restrictions which got between me and my family. After almost two years of no Isla hugs, we found a way around the restrictions and I spent six months away, before returning home in February this year. It feels like years ago, it feels like yesterday!
Sometime, during all this gemors, Peter and I decided to convert my mother’s wee house into a holiday rental. I threw myself into renovating and decorating the cottage as a distraction from any grief I was feeling and the sadness of being separated from my family. I renamed it Ingadi Cottage (Ingadi meaning garden in isiZulu) to avoid being constantly reminded that my mum was no longer living there. However, before we could start renting it out, Covid hit and I just didn’t want to have to deal with members of the public and all the palaver that went with it. Then I was away from the farm again. So finally, in mid-May this year I managed to get my act together and listed the cottage on Airbnb, and have been absolutely blown away by the response. The demand took me completely by surprise and at first, I was quite disorganized, caught in a never-ending cycle of frantically washing and drying towels and sheets. However, I’ve since bought additional linen and put a system in place that streamlines getting the cottage ready from one guest to the next. As I’ve mentioned before, I do love a list and so we have checklists galore! Airbnb is great because it takes care of all the bookings and payments and so far, I’ve had nothing but praise for the guests we’ve had. And their reviews have been really good with all of them saying they would like to return. Here are some snippets:
The cottage is welcoming and comfortable, with a lovely wood fireplace. …. stunning sunsets over the Drakensberg. It’s quiet and restful. I loved the sounds of birds and wind in the trees.
Amazing cute little spot for a wonderful getaway! Such a special finding.
Awesome cosy cottage!
Cathy’s place is a gem. She is attentive and has gone out of her way to make sure the cottage is comfortable (even during loadshedding!!). The place is peaceful and lovely.
All my favourite adjectives: welcoming, quiet, restful, cosy, peaceful.
It’s so easy to take what we have here for granted – looking up at the brilliant blue sky and hearing only the rustle of wind and leaves and twittering of birds; stargazing at night with owls for company hooting softly to each other; technicolour sunsets; afternoon mist swirling down the koppie, enfolding the house while we sit cosily in front of a flickering wood fire. I have a postcard that I picked up from Roger Young’s Kruisrivier gallery many years ago, which has a picture of his porcupine sculpture and the words: kom lê jou gedagtes voor die vuur, which roughly translated means, come and lay your thoughts in front of the fire. And that’s exactly what we do! This is a place for contemplation.
It may seem strange to start something like the Airbnb when we have already made up our minds to leave here one of these fine days to be closer to our family. However, we don’t know when that day will come and I can’t just sit around waiting. Knowing that our time here is limited has helped me to become much more appreciative of everything we have around us and I’m making a concerted effort to live in the present, taking nothing for granted. I am reminded of a quote from Elisabeth Kubler-Ross:
It’s only when we truly know and understand that we have a limited time on earth – and that we have no way of knowing when our time is up, we will then begin to live each day to the fullest, as if it was the only one we had.
There’s nothing quite like the appearance of a puffadder or two near the house (as well as a few harmless snakes inside the house) to make one question the wisdom of having a wild and woolly garden in rural South Africa. My gardening vision has always been to allow the natural bush on our property to creep up into the garden so that it would feel like we were living in the bush. Now that it has, I’m having second thoughts. To be honest, I’m starting to feel a bit intimidated by it and frustrated by the urge to tame and control it. I’m trying very hard not to let one cockroach spoil a bowl of cherries, so to speak and because I would never want to have anything other than a wildlife friendly garden, I just have to make it work so that I’m not constantly wary of snakes. Perhaps in winter I’ll clear a strip around the house and hope for the best.
When I was a kid growing up in Port Elizabeth, our garden bordered onto a wonderfully wild valley that I spent hours exploring, often barefoot. I remember after evening bath-time, I would lie on my bed while my mother dug thorns out of my feet with a sewing needle! I knew there were snakes in the valley because my brother collected them under a sheet of corrugated iron at the bottom of the garden. However, the thought of snakes never deterred me from playing in the valley.
Years later, in my early twenties, I lived with Peter in a homestead on the Makhathini Flats in Zululand, at a place called Mboza. It was nothing more than a few mud huts in a clearing in the bush overlooking a lake (or pan as it was called). There was no running water or electricity. Our toilet was a long-drop and our bathroom a canvas bag strung up in a tree with a grass mat (icansi) providing some privacy. We did have a kitchen hut with a gas ring to cook on but mostly, we cooked outdoors over a fire. I had several close encounters with dangerous snakes while we were living there: a green mamba joined me for a shower once, I nearly stepped on a puffadder sprawled across a pathway, and a black mamba slithered under our legs as we sat beside the fire one evening. Since no one I knew had ever been bitten by a snake, I wasn’t that perturbed by them. Live and let live has always been my credo when it comes to critters so I’m not sure why my run in with a puffadder last year unsettled me so much. Do we just get more fearful as we get older, more aware of our mortality, I wonder?
As Peter and I contemplate the possibility of leaving here to be closer to our children, both of whom live in the USA, I’ve begun reflecting on what kind of lifestyle I’m hoping for in this next stage of my life. Of course, my greatest desire is to be able to spend more time with our children and their families, and to be a more hands-on grandma. Something else that I look forward to is being able to pare back and live an even more simple life than we do here. Our home, when we move, will be a much smaller affair than what we have now – it’s likely to be an annex or basement conversion. And, as much as I love my house (and I really do), it was built to accommodate a family and the two us tend to rattle around in it now. The fact that there’s also always something to attend to is getting more tiresome as I get older. I just don’t want the responsibility anymore of maintaining a house this size. I know I’m still capable of creating another lovely home wherever we end up and I like to think of downsizing as pruning away dead wood and giving new growth the space to flourish. Perhaps encouraging even more beautiful blooms on the stems!
Living on a smallholding has been the best experience I could’ve hoped for after leaving the city and dealing with an empty nest. There’s never really been a dull moment – always something to do, always something to delight it. Being the custodian of 9 hectares (22 acres) of land has been an amazing challenge that has kept me, dare I say it, grounded. This lifestyle has given me so much and was such a godsend during the pandemic – the joy of living close to nature; the freedom of wide, open spaces; the privilege of amazing views and spectacular sunsets. Being fairly isolated has helped me to become more resilient and resourceful, to develop that ‘n boer maak ‘n plan mentality. The sense of space and seclusion is also perfect for self-reflection and exploration. But it’s also resulted in me becoming more socially isolated and I’m looking forward to a lifestyle where I can be more connected to community. A sense of belonging is important to me and I’m going to focus on finding it in the next stage of my life.
I’m grateful for every minute spent here and it will be a wrench to leave this place, of that I have no doubt. I love every inch of it; the koppie, the natural bush, the orchard, the allotment, the house we built and made a home, and the garden I created from scratch. I sometimes marvel as I stroll around the garden at how, apart from the migrating natural bush, I’ve planted every single tree, shrub and plant. I will be very sad to leave my garden but I know I’ve made mistakes and look forward to having another go having learnt from those mistakes. How exciting it is to think that I may be given another blank canvas, albeit a much smaller one, to create another wild and woolly garden. And one without puffadders at that.
harmless brown water snake (I think) in the pond just another amazing sunset
The Crystal Gazer
I shall gather myself into myself again,
I shall take my scattered selves and make them one,
Fusing them into a polished crystal ball
Where I can see the moon and the flashing sun.
Sara Teasdale
Well, I’m back home in South Africa after what feels like a long and winding, physical and emotional, roller coaster ride. Honestly, I feel like a completely different person to the one who left six months ago. This is mostly thanks to the removal of my gallbladder but also thanks to time spent doing some work on my mental health. I was at an all-time low back in September 2021; missing my family desperately and keen to help Kiera who was taking some strain after starting a new job, working from home and looking after a toddler at the same time when daycare was closed, as it was on a regular basis during the pandemic. The decision to travel to the US during COVID was expensive and stressful. Since America had put South Africa on a travel ban list, we were forced to spend 2 weeks in another country (Zanzibar) before we were allowed entry. Annoying to say the least as we were far more at risk of getting COVID in Zanzibar than we were back home! Despite enjoying our holiday there, it was a huge relief to finally get to the US and put all the stress and strain of travel behind us. Peter spent 6 weeks in the US and returned home at the end of October, after Isla’s third birthday. I stayed on for another 4 months.
November was a bit of a write-off for me. I felt intermittently poorly from the beginning to the end of the month and eventually landed up in hospital after Thanksgiving having my pesky gallbladder removed. I was a nervous wreck leading up to the op; I was worried sick about what was wrong with me, terrified about the cost of hospitalisation and surgery in America, and anxious that instead of helping to reduce the pressure on Kiera, I was adding to the strain on her and her family. However, once it was all over, I felt better than I have in a long time. Indigestion, acid reflux and bloating, all things that have plagued me for years, now seem to be a thing of the past. Even my levels of anxiety are greatly reduced; I feel calmer and the cloud of constant worrying has lifted. And I can drink wine again without any ill effects, hallelujah!
Thank goodness I still had three more months in the US. This extended stay gave me a wonderful opportunity to really get to know my granddaughter, Isla. However, I must be honest, this was not all plain sailing. My mother was the most amazing grandma to my kids and they loved her to bits. She had endless patience and would drop everything to do whatever they wanted to do. She played such an important part in their lives; she looked after them as babies when I went back to work part-time and when they were older, she looked after them when they got back from school. So, I had it in my mind that Isla was going to adore me as much as my kids had Edna and that I would be as good a grandma, if not better. What I didn’t take into account was that I am a remote grandma, whereas my mother lived with us. Also, Isla had spent so much quality time at home with her parents during lockdown that at first, I was not really a good enough substitute. I grew to realise that as much as Isla wasn’t Kiera or Alex, neither was I my mother. As soon as I stopped trying (and failing) to be the kind of grandma my mother had been and just started to be me, Isla and I were able to develop our own relationship which gives us both a huge amount of pleasure and makes me feel like the luckiest person alive.
During my stay in the US, I spent a lot of time in the kitchen. So, I was pleasantly surprised to find that I really enjoyed cooking for my family again. I relied mostly on good old standby meals that I can do with my eyes closed, but I also experimented with some new recipes which was fun. Kiera and I would plan the weekly meals which they shopped for on the weekend while I babysat. Sometimes, if supplies ran low towards the end of the week, Kiera would order meal kits from HelloFresh (similar to UCOOK in SA). I would do the mise en place when the kit arrived and later Kiera and I would cook the meal together. As you can imagine, this made me a very happy camper. (There are some new additions on my recipes page.)
I also tried my hand at a bit of baking – a fun activity to do with Isla. The last time I visited Rockville, I had stashed the seldom used KitchenAid mixer away in a kitchen cupboard in order to create more counter space. It was still there when I returned three years later. So I retrieved it, plonked it back on the kitchen counter and discovered what a doddle baking is with one of these gadgets. It did cause me to wonder if I would have done more baking during the time I was a stay-at-home-mum if I had had one of these at my disposal. All I could manage back then were muffins and the occasional carrot cake.
During lockdown I lost interest in so many activities that used to give me pleasure. I’ve since discovered that this is called anhedonia and is a common symptom of depression. Thankfully, being away from home, out of my comfort zone and in a new environment allowed me the space to see that my mental health was not all that it should be. Especially after Kiera expressed concern about my low moods, something I’ve lived with for a long time but perhaps had been exacerbated by the pandemic and resultant separation from family. I’m also grateful to a friend with whom I’ve stayed in touch via Facebook and is quite open about his own mental health issues, for responding very tactfully to a comment I made during this time about my anxiety. He wrote, “It can be hard to differentiate between depression and anxiety and the two often go together in a cocktail of varying strength.” He also sent me some very useful resources to help distinguish between the two. I really hadn’t realised the significance of these low moods, thinking that they were simply part of my personality. However, when other people started to see them and express concern about it, I knew that I needed to sit up and take notice.
With the help of a couple of books, including Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before? by Dr Julie Smith, I’ve been learning more about these ‘dark places’ that I find myself going to. I’ve become aware of some of the things that trigger them (weather definitely contributes, especially if I can’t get outdoors) and how my usual response of withdrawing (some might say brooding) is not helpful. Once I began to recognise how these low moods were being fueled by my thoughts, I’ve tried to change the way I respond to the triggers. And I have noticed an improvement in my mental health; I’m feeling less anxious, not defaulting to the worst-case scenario all the time, feeling better about myself, concentration has improved, and I’ve started doing stuff again that brings me joy. (Would like to mention here that Kiera took me to a Tedeschi Trucks Band concert in Washington, DC just before I left; and when I got home, Peter and I went to a Guy Buttery and Madala Kunene concert at the Old Mushroom Farm in Karkloof. Both were amazing, confirming for me that live music really is very good for the soul.)
at the Tedeschi Trucks Band concert
the beautiful Warner Theatre in Washington, DC
Guy Buttery and Madala Kunene, guitar wizards
Five and a half years ago I wrote a post in the form of a letter to Kiera called My Back Pages where I expressed the intention to take better care of my body (!) as I live my third act. I’m now extending that to include my mental health. I asked Kiera for a favour in that letter:
Don’t let me give up and play the age card; keep pushing me to realise my potential and not to be fearful. Call me out if I become self-pitying, complaining, negative or small-minded. I’ll understand even if it hurts – I’m sure I’ll cry and get annoyed but at the end of the day, I’ll know it’s because you love me.
I would like to add this to the favour:
Please continue to call me out when I’m brooding in the basement, I know I can do better!
While I was in the US, I read an online Guardian article entitled 100 ways to slightly improve your life without really trying. Now, I’m an inveterate list maker. I love lists; from mundane shopping lists, daily to-do lists and weekly meal plans to the more abstract lists on how to live your best life and be your best self. So, when I read the Guardian article, it inspired me to try and write my own list of ways to improve my life. How hard could it be? The Guardian list, after all, was full of mostly pretty trite advice; some of which I already follow (like ‘add the milk at least one minute after the tea has brewed’), some that weren’t really applicable to my circumstances (like ‘always bring ice to house parties’) and a few pieces of advice that I thought I might just bear in mind (like ‘always have dessert’ and ‘don’t be weird about how to stack the dishwasher’).
However, I hit a bit of a brick wall with my own advice to myself and then I remembered Matt Haig’sHow to Live (forty pieces of advice I feel to be helpful but which I don’t always follow) from his book Reasons to Stay Alive. (Haig is a fellow list-lover, by the way.) As I started to focus attention on my own mental wellbeing, his little nuggets of advice proved really insightful. So, here is a whittled down (39 not 40), slightly edited version of his list:
1. Appreciate happiness when it is there. I have to remind myself of this constantly; to be present, that sometimes happiness is in the process as well as the outcome, and pleasure is to be found in simple things.
2. Listen to what Hamlet – literature’s most famous depressive – told Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. ‘There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.’
In Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl wrote:
Everything you have in life can be taken from you except one thing, your freedom to choose how you will respond to the situation. This is what determines the quality of the life we’ve lived — not whether we’ve been rich or poor, famous or unknown, healthy or suffering. What determines our quality of life is how we relate to these realities, what kind of meaning we assign them, what kind of attitude we cling to about them, what state of mind we allow them to trigger.
The idea that we can choose how to respond to a situation has definitely become one of my credos.
3. Sip, don’t gulp. A reminder about the importance of mindfulness and to go easy on the wine now that I can drink it again.
4. Be gentle with yourself. Work less. Sleep more. I tend to be hard on myself for not being busy enough. I think that when I’m busy, I’m useful and ipso facto, when I’m not busy, I’m a waste of space. However, Haig goes on to say:
5. Don’t feel guilty about being idle. More harm is probably done to the world through work than idleness. But perfect your idleness. Make it mindful. And on the subject of mindlessly passing the time watching crappy telly or browsing social media, he says:
6. Do not watch TV aimlessly. Do not go on social media aimlessly. Always be aware of what you are doing, and why you are doing it. Don’t value TV less. Value it more. Then you will watch it less. Unchecked distractions will lead you to distraction. This is one of my responses to low moods, so I’ve been much more mindful lately of what I’m watching and why.
7. Sit down. Lie down. Be still. Do nothing. Observe. Listen to your mind. Let it do what it does without judging it. Let it go, like the Snow Queen in Frozen.
8. There is absolutely nothing in the past that you can change. That’s basic physics.Accept this and you’ll be a much happier person.
9. Kurt Vonnegut was right. ‘Reading and writing are the most nourishing forms of meditation anyone has so far found.’
10. Listen more than you talk.
11. Be aware that you are breathing.
12. Wherever you are, at any moment, try and find something beautiful. A face, a line out of a poem, the clouds out of a window, some graffiti, a wind farm. Beauty cleans the mind.
13. Hate is a pointless emotion to have inside you. It is like eating a scorpion to punish it for stinging you.
14. Go for a run. Then do some yoga. As it is highly unlikely that I will ever go for a run unless I’m being chased, I’ve modified this to: have some form of exercise.
15. Shower before noon. I have to admit I’m still working on this.
16. Look at the sky. Remind yourself of the cosmos. Seek out vastness at every opportunity, in order to see the smallness of yourself.
17. Be kind. I need to add a note here to myself to try to be generous of spirit and give others the benefit of the doubt when possible.
18. Understand that thoughts are thoughts. If they are unreasonable, reason with them, even if you have no reason left. You are the observer of your mind, not its victim. From reading Dr Julie Smith, I’ve learnt to identify negative thought patterns, very helpful when dealing with low moods.
19. Don’t worry about things that probably won’t happen. For those of us who suffer from anxiety, it’s very useful to recognise the difference between clean and dirty pain: “Dirty pain is any suffering that comes about from not (the) events themselves but from your thoughts about the events.” Mark Twain put it this way:
I’ve lived through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened.
20. Look at trees. Be near trees. Plant trees. (Trees are great.)
21. Listen to that yoga instructor on YouTube, and ‘walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet’.
22. Live. Love. Let go. The three Ls.
23. Alcohol maths. Wine multiplies itself by itself. The more you have, the more you are likely to have. And if it’s hard to stop at one glass, it will be impossible at three. Addition is multiplication.
24. Beware of the gap. The gap between where you are and where you want to be. Simply thinking of the gap widens it. And you end up falling through.
25. Read a book without thinking about finishing it. Just read it. Enjoy every word, sentence, and paragraph. Don’t wish for it to end, or for it to never end.
26. No drug in the universe will make you feel better, at the deepest level, than being kind to other people.
27. If someone loves you, let them. Believe in that love. Live for them, even when you feel there is no point.
28. You don’t need the world to understand you. It’s fine. Some people will never really understand things they haven’t experienced. Some will. Be grateful.
29. Jules Verne wrote of the ‘Living Infinite’. This is the world of love and emotion that is like a ‘sea’. If we can submerge ourselves in it, we find infinity in ourselves, and the space we need to survive.
30. Three in the morning is never the time to try and sort out your life. I’ve tried and he’s right!
31. Remember that there is nothing weird about you. You are just a human, and everything you do and feel is a natural thing, because we are natural animals. You are nature. You are a hominid ape. You are in the world and the world is in you. Everything connects.
32. Don’t believe in good or bad, or winning and losing, or victory and defeat, or up and down. At your lowest and at your highest, whether you are happy or despairing or calm or angry, there is a kernel of you that stays the same. That is the you that matters.
33. Don’t worry about the time you lose to despair. The time you will have afterwards has just doubled its value.
34. Be transparent to yourself. Make a greenhouse for your mind. Observe.
35. Read Emily Dickinson. Read Graham Greene. Read Italo Calvino. Read Maya Angelou. Read anything you want. Just read. Books are possibilities. They are escape routes. They give you options when you have none. Each one can be a home for an uprooted mind.
36. If the sun is shining, and you can be outside, be outside. Yes, Yes, Yes!
37. Remember that the key thing about life on earth is change. Cars rust. Paper yellows. Technology dates. Caterpillars become butterflies. Nights morph into days. Depression lifts.
38. Just when you feel you have no time to relax, know that this is the moment you most need to make time to relax.
39. Be brave. Be strong. Breathe, and keep going. You will thank yourself later.
Funny how things never quite go according to plan and how often what we try so hard to avoid can turn out, in the end, to be for the best. This happened to me recently. I left home just over three months ago to travel to the US to spend much-needed time with my children and grandchild. The pandemic and resulting isolation on the farm had wreaked havoc on my psyche and I desperately needed to feel the reassuring love of my family in person. I also wanted to provide support to my daughter after James and her had spent a year and a half in lockdown with a toddler and both of them had started new jobs. As it turned out, my physical well-being unexpectedly took a turn for the worse and instead of me providing support to others, I landed up being the one cared for.
About a month after arriving here, I woke up in the middle of the night with a sore tummy and back ache. It lasted a couple of hours; I took some Gaviscon and went back to sleep. The second time it happened, I did what a lot of us do, I consulted Google. Since I’ve suffered from reflux for years, the diagnosis I came up with was gastritis. I cut back on spicy food, took antacids and carried on. The third attack, which now included nausea and diarrhoea, took me 4 days to recover from. After much badgering from Alex (who was visiting from Miami) and Kiera, I agreed rather reluctantly to see a doctor. The doctor recommended an ultrasound scan of my gallbladder. If it wasn’t gallbladder, she said, it would be stomach related. Well, there is nothing quite as arrogant as stupidity! I ignored the doctor’s recommendation and went back to Google, and this time I decided on a peptic ulcer diagnosis. I started taking Omeprazole, an over-the-counter proton-pump inhibitor, and continued with the antacids.
The fourth and final attack happened two weeks later, on Thanksgiving morning. I couldn’t get out of bed; I was in pain and feeling extremely nauseous. By now, I had lost quite a bit of weight and was starting to feel a tad worried, not only about my health, but also about the cost of any medical treatment I might need. On the Sunday after Thanksgiving, when my pee turned ominously orange and my skin and eyes a sickly shade of yellow, the kids decided enough was enough and took me to the nearest emergency room at the Shady Grove Medical Centre.
I was kept in the emergency ward from about 1:00pm to midnight while scans and tests were done and doctors consulted. Kiera was allowed to wait with me and that was a blessing because it was a very stressful time. Eventually a bed became available in the hospital and I was admitted. All this time Kiera was working on getting authorisation for tests and treatment from my travel insurance, which was proving to be very difficult. Made more so by it being a Sunday and the 7-hour time difference. Eventually Peter got hold of someone in SA and, after throwing all his toys out of the cot, got the necessary authorisation.
The long and the short of it is I had an inflamed gallbladder (cholecystitis) and elevated liver enzymes. The solution was to remove the gallbladder laparoscopically and monitor the liver for possible damage. Fortunately, with the gallbladder gone, my liver function returned to normal and I was discharged a couple of days later feeling like a new person and a bit bewildered that I no longer had one of my organs!
My experience at the Shady Grove Hospital in Rockville was completely different to what I imagined it would be. I had preconceived ideas about American health care based on a lifetime of watching TV hospital dramas. Yes, the emergency room experience was not so great (10 hours of waiting on a gurney in a cubicle) but once I was admitted, I was well looked after and treated by everyone with such kindness and consideration. The nursing care during my stay was fantastic – all the nurses were friendly, gentle and attentive. They loved my accent and I felt I was being treated a bit like royalty. The hospitalist, whose face was obscured by a mask but who had the most compassionate eyes, came to see me at midnight and mentioned that I might need an MRI (I had already had an ultrasound and a CT scan). At that point I had no insurance authorisation and was quite clearly distressed about the expense. He was so sympathetic and assured me that no-one was denied medical treatment if they couldn’t afford it. He said he would arrange for one of the hospital’s case workers to help us with the insurance. I was also told by a nurse that they treat a lot of patients who don’t ever settle their bills and that I shouldn’t worry about the cost! I can’t imagine a private hospital in SA providing that sort of care.
On the day of my op, the case worker came by to help Kiera with the travel insurance after telling us that South Africans are just the nicest people! I was so grateful that both Kiera and Alex were allowed to visit me in hospital during this time and that they were included in the consultations with the surgeon. The surgeon, Dr Brodsky, deserves a special mention. He reassuringly explained the procedure to us, even drawing pictures so that we knew what to expect. He made me feel very safe in his hands, no mean feat since my two previous experiences of surgeons and surgery were not exactly positive ones. Which is probably the reason why I was so loath to seek medical help in the first place.
I have definitely been humbled by this experience and my trust in the practice of medicine restored. I have promised the kids that my days of Googling medical issues and self-diagnosis are over and whatever ailments I am afflicted with going forward, I shall first consult a doctor and not assume that Google and I know better.
It’s been just over three weeks since the op; I am pretty much fully recovered and feeling better than I have in a long time. As advised, Kiera kept me on a strict no-fat diet for the first two weeks which required a lot of planning on her part. However, I’ve since resumed my normal diet and all seems well.
At the end of the day, the thing that terrified me the most (being ill in America) turned out to be not so bad after all. I got the best medical care and to top it all I had both Kiera and Alex here to look after and support me, as well as Isla, whose hugs and snuggles were just what the doctor ordered.
lights in the parkUncle Alex and Isla at the parkour American family
Winnie was feeling very relieved. Gogo had started packing all the summer clothes, now somewhat well-worn, back into the suitcase and it looked like they were going to be on the move again. A bear generally prefers colder climes and Zanzibar, being so close the equator was rather hot and humid, even though it was not yet summer there. Gogo and Grumps seemed to enjoy the warm weather, taking long walks along the water’s edge and swimming in the pool. They even jumped off the end of the pier and swam in the sea a few times when the tide was in. That wasn’t Winnie’s idea of fun. Despite a constant supply of honey, Winnie was feeling that too much of a good thing was in fact just that, too much.
Gogo and Grumps were really keen to get to America and it meant that getting into the holiday spirit in Zanzibar had proved to be a bit difficult. At the end of their stay, they had to have another Covid test for entry into the US and it would really throw a spanner in the works if they tested positive. Also, they didn’t want to infect Isla when they arrived. So, they were very conscientious about social distancing and didn’t go on any of the day trips except for a tour of Stone Town, which they took Winnie on at the end of their stay. If they had been on a proper holiday, they would’ve enjoyed joining in the activities and being more sociable but instead they kept to themselves and tried to keep themselves entertained. Which wasn’t a real hardship given that they were staying in such a lovely place.
Mealtimes became the anchor point to which all other activities were attached. After breakfast Gogo returned to the room to do her chi kung warmup exercises followed by Joe Wicks’ workout for seniors. While Grumps found a comfortable spot under an umbrella to read one of the many books he had lugged over with him. Gogo would then don her swimsuit and join him with her much more sensible-for-travelling Kindle.
At first Gogo was feeling a bit uncomfortable wearing her swimsuit which felt a tad tight after she had last worn it in Mauritius a year and a half ago. However, she reminded herself of a decision that she had taken that life was too short to be self-conscious about one’s weight and that the best way forward was to own it instead of trying to hide it. She even confided to Winnie that for the next summer holiday she was planning to wear a bikini, but he sincerely hoped that she was joking. This change of attitude came after years of Gogo hating her body shape, which she had in turn learnt from her mother who had constantly moaned about her own expanding waistline. One day Gogo had complained over the phone to Kiera that she was feeling so fat and ugly and Kiera asked her not to say things like that in front of Isla as it was important for children to grow up with a healthy body image. It was a light-bulb moment for Gogo as she realised that a more positive attitude was needed, not only for Isla but for her own well-being.
After lunch, it was time for a walk and a nap. Then another swim and another walk before drinkie-poos at their favourite bar. Then it was dinner and whatever entertainment had been laid on before going bed.
Mealtimes also became a major talking point for Gogo and Grumps, with the daily menu a hot topic of conversation. What was tasty, what was not, what they missed and what they looked forward to. The food, on the whole, was good, especially the fruit and veggies; sweet, juicy pineapples, small, delicious bananas, sun-ripened tomatoes bursting with flavour. And the freshly baked breads and pastries were tasty too. Every morning Grumps grumbled about the lack of bacon (Zanzibar is a predominantly Muslim country) and Gogo blanched at the sight of fried Vienna sausages of indeterminate origin appearing on his breakfast plate as a substitute. It was surprising for a country known as the Spice Island that the food was a tad on the bland side and Gogo commented more than once that there’s no curry quite as good as a Durban curry.
It wasn’t long however, before the 15 days was up and it was time to go. But before leaving, Gogo, Grumps and Winnie went on a fascinating tour of Stone Town.
Stone Town is a city of prominent historical and artistic importance in East Africa. Its architecture, mostly dating back to the 19th century, reflects the diverse influences underlying the Swahili culture, giving a unique mixture of Arab, Persian, Indian and European elements. For this reason, the town was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2000.
Wikipedia
And then they were off, about bloody time, Winnie thought. They survived the scrum that was Zanzibar airport and from there on, the trip to Washington, DC via Doha was uneventful. The plane from Doha was half empty so it was possible to lie down and sleep for part of the way which was great. However, by the time they cleared US immigration (which was a doddle) Gogo’s stress levels had reached some kind of record high. Her stomach was in such a knot it actually led to a very unpleasant bout of gastritis, but at least she was where she wanted to be, at last.
Once through customs, Gogo and Grumps scoured the waiting crowd for James, their son-in-law, assuming that Kiera was waiting at home with Isla. As Gogo turned to Grumps to recall how Alex had surprised her at the airport the last time she arrived at Dulles in 2019, both Kiera and Alex materialised in front of them. Gogo was flabbergasted! Alex had totally surprised them again, flying up from Miami to spend a week with them. They had finally reached their destination and seeing their children together for the first time in over two years made the journey they had been on to get there so well worth it.
There was a very joyful reunion with Isla who was waiting at home with James. Although she didn’t know they were coming, Isla recognised Gogo and Grumps straightaway and squealed with delight when she saw them arrive. And Winnie was also very happy to see Cosgrove again, the Hamleys’ teddy who had also been Kiera’s bear when she was a little girl. The two bears sat back and enjoyed watching the exuberant family get-together. How was your trip? Cosgrove asked. It wasn’t easy, replied Winnie, but as you know:
you can’t stay in your corner of the Forest waiting for others to come to you. You have to go to them sometimes.
I’m sorry we are in such a hurry to leave you. You certainly have many gifts, the most precious one you have given us is a beautiful and peaceful place in which to relax and restore our balance. It really sets the tone when, in response to the friendly Swahili greeting “jambo”, one is wished “hakuna matata” or “no worries”. And it didn’t take long before our worries did seem to evaporate up into the palm fronds. Secluded from the hustle and bustle of everyday life, we have been reading voraciously (thanks to Chris for topping up my Kindle), swimming, walking and simply sitting and enjoying the view. And do you know what? For the first time in over a year and a half, I slept through the night. For that I am truly grateful.
A Peek at Life 