joy

My Sunshine Girl

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Daily writing prompt
Tell us one thing you hope people say about you.
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You know, I always tell my daughter that she is my sunshine girl. The sun shines out of her large beautiful eyes and beams out of her gorgeous big smile. She always thinks good of others, even the mean little four year olds at school who say hurtful things to her. ‘I think she forgot she was my friend Mama,‘ she says, ‘or I think she just didn’t know I liked her.‘

‘Did what they did to you hurt you in your heart?’ I ask gently, and the little half smile vanishes from her face and her mouth turns down against her will. ‘No Mama,’ she says stoutly, ‘in my FEELINGS.’

Okay okay. She is such a sensitive little soul. If you tell her off she backs away with a big smile on her face but when you inspect it further her eyes are brimming with tears that are on the cusp of falling over the edge of her lashes, and her smile is wobbly. I ask if she is okay and she nods and if pressed about it the little tears pour down her cheeks in tragic rivulets.

But she is my sunshine child. Her laugh echoes through the house and if she wonders off in a supermarket her high cheery little voice is my beacon to her. She is loud and clumsy and full of ringlets and chubby cuddles. Whenever I looked at her when she was a baby her fat little legs would cycle into a frenzy and her smiles became little squeals of excitement. I never saw such happiness in someone when they looked at me, my heart would rise up with my own joy to meet hers. She is still this way when we have visitors, when she spies me after her day at school, when I surprise her while she is out shopping with her dad, when her grandma comes to visit – little dances of joy and rapture, hugs galore, never stingy with her affection. I missed you! You’re my favourite person in the whole whole world… everyone is her favourite.

People say about her – she is the spreader of joy. Where is my happy little girl, my mum always asks. We named her after the night, a night of sparkling stars and a glorious moon, only made so because of the generosity of the sun.

So when I think about what I hope people say about me, I think, I want them to say ‘she appreciates the good in others’ – and only so because my daughter taught me when she came into this world 26 years after I did, to only seek the good in others.

That is how you be a sunshine girl.

[8]

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i have idealised a porch, I fear.

I have visualised it so vividly that the image I have conjured up for myself gives me a heartache.

Let me paint the scene for you.

I see pillars supporting a porch, wooden floorboards, fencing all around made of wooden beams, and then wide, wide steps leading down onto the lawn. Hydrangea bushes grow thick and luscious with baby blue flowerheads, tinged here and there with purple, flanking the steps. There is a large swing seat, where a granny sits to do her sewing while she watches the neighbours. They also sit on their porches, mow their lawns, watch sunrises and sunsets, gather together and talk, reminisce under the starry sky.

I see myself there, I see my family, I see laughter and stories, I see the warm orange glow of a house filled with life spilling out onto a garden of shrubs that harbours secrets, excitement, hope for the future and trysts.

I see the dreams spoken out into the night on cloudy breath, and long summer evenings with sips of tea or cold home-made lemonade, children rolling about in front of the porch, adults discussing the depths of humanity as they watch their progeny grow up together.

I see togetherness, in a porch. Community. Something more.

Have I romanticised the porch?

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On Spinning Joy

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I begin this post with a quote: “I could not read, eat, sleep, write or do anything unless I drove myself to do it and then I felt as if I were trying to do it with somebody else’s hands or brain and couldn’t work very well with them. I feel lustreless, dowdy and uninviting – I even bore myself. I shall grow mossy in this existence!“

This was written by Emily, from a book in the Emily of New Moon series by LM Montgomery.

Never have words felt truer to my soul. I have moved across the globe, twice. I have lived under the perpetual dampness of a February chill, grey skies and a sun that was never to be seen save for a few snatched glorious cold steely moments where she deemed us worthy to sprinkle her rays weakly at us. I have lived in a torrid desert, every breath laden with the fine dust carried over the sand dunes. Artificial light, artificial skies, artificial wind…

And yes, this dowdy, lustreless feeling chases me wherever I go, ripping away my inspiration and making me bow before it.

Yet every day I wake up with new resolve. I am determined to find my nature. My joy. A way to smile and truly feel the happiness in the pit of my stomach.

Home is where the family is. Joy is in the heart, not the location, and peace and happiness come from within.

Lombardi poplar trees. There is a row of them in Nantwich, and they always decorate the skyline with a gorgeousness that aches the heart.

Take 2: The Romantic Version

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For a few moments the sun beamed through some stormy clouds, and while that happened a beautiful bride with an array of white lillies made her way from the old church doors towards a limosine the length of a lorry. And then the heavy grey clouds above knitted together like a frown and the rain began to pour. We waited ten minutes in the bakery for some cheese and onion pasties and the people behind the counter asked me five times if I had been served and the lady who had served us kept making a funny about how me and my littles were waiting for the nanny pasties to bake.

They did wait so well, their noses pressed against the glass behind which all the fineries the bakery had to offer were displayed. Vanilla slices with pink icing, chocolate cupcakes iced with fine up-do’s, large fat danish pastries with generous helpings of custard yolk nestled in their middles, giant scones you just know were shaped by a pair of skilled old hands, eccles cakes, battenburg slices, giant gingerbread men and chocolate chip shortbread biscuits the size of my three year old’s face.

Then once they each had their pasties and my son his vanilla slice that he insisted proudly on buying with a little bit of pocket money he had, we braved the rain and ran as fast as we could to the library, where we read and played and work for an hour and a half, and then back home for the rest of the day. Pottered about gardening, watched and named some birds who visited our birdfeeder today, they cuddled with their father once he got home from work late that evening and my son read a Paddington Bear story to him. I came in a little later and found them all sleeping together with the book across my son’s chest.

Small blessings, folks, ought to be counted. They are numerous and yet still precious.

On Rice and Dhal

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I made a spelt loaf for my children yesterday when an unexpected guest popped by. Three people. An adult and two children. They stayed for lunch and we got to chatting, and then it was 5pm, then 6pm and we were still talking away so I eventually said, ‘why don’t you stay for dinner?’

‘Oh no I couldn’t possibly, we have outstayed our welcome!’

‘No no, stay, I insist!’

So they stayed. I opened my fridge door and said ‘let’s do eggs and beans and chips’ – only there weren’t any potatoes to make chips with so in the end we went with a Pakistani classic, rice and dhal.

My guest set about washing the dishes and we chatted some more while I pottered about making the meal.

Red lentils, white basmati rice. Wash both. Soak. Boil the lentils with a bit of chopped ginger and garlic, turmeric and cumin, chilli and salt. Then boil the rice with a dash of oil and a cinnamon stick. Fry the onions in butter until nicely browned and crispy, also add some cumin seeds, chopped garlic, sliced chillis. Pour that hot buttery fried onion right into the boiling lentils so it sizzles beautifully on top, give it a last stir, garnish with coriander.

We served it with rice and yogurt.

And for dessert I hunted through my cupboards, found some dates and almonds and cashews. And a packet of lotus biscuits. Cup of tea. More chatter, children being their noisy, happy selves. Then finally our guest stood up and said, ‘well, we definitely have outstayed our welcome now’, and made their way to the front door.

They didn’t though.

They were so very much wanted and welcome.

In this rushed, hurried world of nine to fives and fives to nines, it was nice for a day to forget rigid plans and schedules, sit back and make rice and lentils with a friend while our kids played together. And fought together. In the winter darkness, it felt good to have the warmth of friends staying unexpectedly for dinner.

Favourite song

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What is your favourite song?

And why?

My thing to do when I am cleaning is to sing. I sing very loudly and probably very warbly, but I love to sing. I like to pretend I am an opera singer, or just a regular singer. I like to sing low down to the floor and high high high as a kite. Deep as a ravine, roaring in an echoey bathroom.

When I was a teenager my cousins recorded me singing loudly while I cleaned the bathroom, when I caught them they fell over themselves giggling as they tried to run away from my furiously brandished sponge. Was I embarrassed, then? Oh, terribly so. They mocked me for weeks afterwards, but then I realised I enjoy singing for the fun and the good mood more than I am embarrassed!

My mum sings when she is happy. When I was a child, hearing her sing made me feel relieved, it meant she was in a good mood.

Singing while she washed dishes, singing while she changed nappies, singing as she blew raspberries into my baby brother’s chubby little tummy. She used to sing ‘Video killed the radio kill’ which I later learned was ‘Video killed the radio star‘, and ‘Kookobara lived in the old plain tree‘ which was actually ‘Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree‘.

So that is something my sister and I inherited from our mother.

I think my kids may have inherited it too. They both sing with great gusto, in public and at home, feeding off each other, instigating each other, louder and louder, opera style, until people turn to look at them and I try to shush them because they might ‘disturb other shoppers’ even though I myself do not mind their singing.

It’s a zeal, I think, for life, when you can sing. Loudly and freely.

The Yawning of Spring.

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Spring stepped delicately into the world today, folks.

Wanna know how I know? The birds are chirping songs that sound mysteriously like summer songs, and the wind is breezy, not biting. The sun popped in a few times to say hello, she is now snuggled behind some grey clouds but the atmosphere she has left behind is promising.

I am wearing a light t-shirt and all the windows in my house are open! I was also taken by a sudden urge to air the house out and do some thorough cleaning – that is a sign of waking from hibernation if any. I truly understand the term ‘spring cleaning’ now. In winter, one wants to bundle up and only cleans after weeks of dust settling, groaning because the water is too cold and getting wet means icy extremities.

In spring, however, one WANTS to clean.

Also, the last sign that spring has fluffed her frills today, is the tinkly, glorious sound of the ice cream van. A jolly summery jingle, flooding the streets and bringing back memories of sunshine and leaves. Oh, LEAVES. I haven’t seen leaves since October!

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Isn’t spring so beautiful?

Love Letters #33

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She was standing in the middle of the road, when he first set eyes on her. A light, silken shirt was all that draped her small shoulders in the icy January air. The road was wet with perspiration, and the branches bare, and the drizzle drifted gently down. Her face was pale, her eyes bright, and her hair a cloud of golden silky curls, bouncing as she danced this way and that, her feet turning in all directions and her arms moving side to side, up and down.

He noticed her first because she was dancing, but dancing is the usual sight in this vibrant city of theirs. He did his double take because of her smile. When she smiled, her eyebrows rose, and she looked almost… surprised. And her chin grew pointy, and the tops of her cheeks pointed outwards too.

He thought, if you really stood back and thought about it, she did have quite a sharp little face. But it was so dear and sweet and her eyes sparkled with life and crinkled with joy.

Man, he thought, she really does love to dance. Somebody was standing in front of her, another friend he thought, and the other friend was laughing away but in an awkward way, certainly not joining in.

Cars drove right past her, on both sides. Motorbikes weaved their way around her and people glanced at her then glanced away. Did she make them uncomfortable? He really didn’t see how they could do that. She made him so happy. He stood from his safe distance on the pavement, as the sky drizzled gently around him and slowly soaked him through. And he watched her dance away and laugh.

Presently she noticed him watching her. She kept glancing at him, and then she directed her smile at him, giving him his own little dance show. She was waving him over. Her mouth was miming,

Come join me!

He shook his head, smiling widely. She laughed, and he heard the tinkling giggle over the traffic.

Come on!

He didn’t want to. He knew his arms would be too thick and his body wouldn’t listen to him. He was content to just watch her rhythm, the way life seemed to happen around her, draw her in its flowing current. He was one of those who stood on the fringe of things, while life swept her up in its energetic arms and took her whichever way it chose to run.

Please!

A heart shape with her ever moving fingers, and then, as quickly as she had moulded her hands, she was twirling in another direction.

His feet moved against his will, then. Weaving through the traffic, until he was on the same island she stood on, the white painted thick divide in the traffic, separating one directional flow from the other. The no man’s land of the high street.

She laughed, waved at her friend, and took his arms, moving them this way and that, until he, too, felt part of the current of life. He felt it first in his fingertips, a tingling that spread through his body all the way down to his toes, a small spitfire of energy, moving his limbs without direction from his brain. He closed his eyes, feeling the cold, gentle spray on his face, and let the rhythm of the world take him.

***

And that, is how I met my wife.

Spreading Some Joy

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I don’t have many words to use anymore. I am spent. So I leave you with a photograph of a snippet of happiness. Children and bubbles, long summer evenings. And a man spreading joy.

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Image Credit: Yours truly