Musings

May 08

My Reintegration – Like Caging a Deer

By Mary | Musings, Our Travels | No Comments

That’s right, I’ve just likened myself to a deer. If you know me well, you would know I am almost nothing like a deer. I certainly cannot jump, my pelt is rather more white than brown, and my hooves lack a distinct lightness of step. I do however enjoy the freedom of an open plane, grasslands where you can roam uninhibited, streams with crystal cool water to frolic in, winding your way through an indigenous forest, nothing but nature around you for miles in every direction. I realise how this sounds, and yes I have a four year old daughter, and yes I’ve watched Bambi more times than I can count, but I have also just had six months of freedom, six months of running in which ever direction I chose.

Being home, and engrossed in daily life, has highlighted my confinement. The adjustment period needed to integrate me back into ‘normal’ life is overwhelmingly more complex than I anticipated. As doe-eyed as you might think I am, I didn’t foresee this complication, a feeling of hovering above life, but not quite in it. Everyday I wake up in the same house, and face much the same day as the one before. The routine I so longed for while we were travelling is now here and has taken hold of me like the teeth of a snare. As unpleasant as that sounds, I don’t dislike my life or my routine. What I dislike is that I don’t have the option to head into the hills with my family and hike until we all fall over, that we can’t all climb into a car and drive hundreds of kilometres talking nonsense and laughing, reading each other novels while the children sleep, and trying to formulate the strangest noises we can while passing the tedious hours strapped to a chair. Heading to a new ‘home’ every few days was exhausting, but it also gave us the opportunity to live like locals in a foreign city and visit sights I had only seen in movies and National Geographic magazines. As tiring as living like that was, I felt like we were living, really experiencing life.

I never really understood the idea of being bitten by the travel bug. I couldn’t understand a person’s desire to sit for hours on a plane, travel in sticky public transport and sleep in uncomfortable beds. Being in a breath-taking place, I totally get, but I never thought the route getting there was worth it. I’ve only recently come to realise that being bitten by the travel bug means you are entirely willing to tweak (read ‘unhinge’) your comfort levels, that seeing new things everyday, things that change your frame of reference and adjust your previous ideas about a place, a group of people, or a whole nation, is worth its weight in sweaty public transportation.When we arrived back from the States I was happy to give travelling the old boot for at least the next ten years. After a week, I had changed my mind enough to be planning an epic trip for the end of the year. I now find myself chomping at the bit, spurring my iron horse on so we can rake in more colourful notes that will procure our passage to ever more far off lands.

If mind reading was possible in a blog, you would all know I say the above with my heels dug firmly into Capetonian soil. I have never felt more at home and more in love with my city. The bug that has bitten me seems to be one most profoundly addicted to spending quality time with my family, in a place where time has less of a hold on us. In many ways I feel torn. Pandora’s box that was cracked open on our travels has without a doubt left me feeling wanting. My only consolation is that wanting time with my family in a place we can all learn and grow, are both great things to want. I also know that the minute we have left Cape Town behind us, my heart will feel wrenched from my chest, securely chained to the mountain and white sandy beaches we’re leaving behind. How have these complexities of life and adulthood crept up on me? I could have sworn I knew it all when I was eighteen, and it was far simpler than this.

Sometimes growing up blows. Sometimes the more you realise about yourself the harder life becomes. But sometimes, just sometimes, realisation can be beautiful. Knowing where you belong in the world is a precious gift far too few people have experienced. Knowing that place will always be there, no matter how far you stray from it, however painful it may be, gives you a foundation of strength and a centre of love to radiate from. Exploring the world and all its magnificence is extreme! It offers you everything: a view inside your soul, a view inside the others travelling with you, a glimpse into the past and the future, an appreciation or an abhorrence, a perspective where previously there was only narrow mindedness. It offers understanding, while at the same time shrouding you in confusion and doubt. It broadens every facet of thought you have ever had, offering so much more to your life and your soul than you thought possible while cuddled in cotton-wool at home sipping expensive local wines complaining about your lack of promotion and the increase in the fuel price. Life is so much bigger, so much more.

I love my home, I love my routine, God knows I love my bed, but some comforts are worth sacrificing for edification and an epic family adventure. Maybe the lesson is that I don’t need to reintegrate. Maybe I can continue to feel like Bambi caged up in a zoo. Maybe that niggling feeling will be what helps us grab every day, make the most of our time at home, while dreaming of the ambitious adventures that lie ahead… may there be many. Bring on the niggles! Xx

My little family 🙂

Apr 14

The Subtle Art of Gaping

By Mary | Musings, Our Travels | No Comments

After spending five months travelling the States in temperatures as low as negative forty degrees – two 31 year old children, two pre-school children, ten bags, two bikes, two scooters, an office-in-a-laptop-bag, mounds of ski gear and an SUV later; packing us up to travel east along the South African coast line was a breeze. Okay, packing is never a breeze, but it was lying on a tropical beach sipping margaritas in comparison.

South Africa’s ‘Garden Route’ has always been praised as one of the most beautiful areas of South Africa. I have never debated it, not for a moment, because the lush green hills and mulchy fern covered forests are beautiful, no, magnificent! You cannot help but breath the peace into your lungs and soak the earth in through your skin. Simply driving along the highway can fill you with a sense of clam like no other road I’ve been on, and I’ve been on a lot of road. Surrounded by indigenous trees green enough to still the busiest mind, you find your eyes constantly gazing off to the hills in the distance, or this is what I’ve found myself doing in the past, on the countless times I’ve been privileged enough to travel that road. On this most recent occasion, I found myself gaping in wonder. What I had always looked at with appreciation and fondness; the lovely hills that accompany you along a large section of the road, were now seen through new eyes, eyes that could see more, appreciate more.
The ‘hills’ of the Eastern Cape are in fact big mountains! I know this because after travelling the States and being less than adequately compensated on many occasions with views which had been raved about, only to find that the “Incredible mountains” in many regions were no more than masses of rolling hills dotted by the occasional larger hill, has left me with a true appreciation for what lies in my own back yard. The mountains that bend and curve alongside the highway, gliding upwards into delicate peaks as they meander their way along the coastline with the grace of a thousand swans, are now seen in the light they should be; truly superb!

Lola and Lincoln running on Main beach in Plett, with the Cape Fold Mountains in the distance.

I struggle to digest my previous nonchalant attitude towards countryside that should be revered. Africa can capture your soul and hold you in its grasp in a way I didn’t know was possible, even though I have often heard tourists comment on it during their frequently recurring trips to our country. South Africa is revered, but I think only truly appreciated by those who have seen more. I feel like perspective should somehow be incorporated into schooling, not just to show us what we have in this country, but to open our eyes to everything we have. I have learned that perspective is the only way to sincerely appreciate anything, but this has taken me a good 30 years and traversing the entire United States to learn.

The abundance of beauty in South Africa is beyond words, there is little you could want and not find in our country, and I am embarrassed to say that I didn’t appreciate this the way I should have as a privileged child growing up, and holidaying, in exquisite areas of South Africa. A large portion of our country, appreciated by some, but simply ignored as a tourist destination by so many of its own people, has more splendour to offer than some of the most talked about National Parks in the US. Maybe we need to get promoting our own country to our own people, or maybe like me, it will take seeing another ‘better’ place, before a grey filter is lifted from their eyes, as their plane touches back down on seemingly unsophisticated, yet deeply rich, African soil.

Mar 13

To Homeschool… or Not to Homeschool

By Mary | Musings, Our Travels | No Comments

What I didn’t expect when I took the kids out of school last year to travel the US for six months, was that I wouldn’t want to send them back when we got home. I find myself in a strange position of late, a monologue debate if you will, fighting both sides of the issue.

When we left last year I was in a wonderful space. The kids were both in nursery school in the morning. This afforded me the time to tackle my list of things to do, get work done, exercise, have coffee with a friend, do the grocery shopping, any number of things that it is easier to do without children, particularly a three and four year old hell bent on turning my previously youthful self into someone looking more like a middle aged mother with each passing day. And then we decided to pack it up and jet the four of us off to the States. Looking back, this was the best thing we have ever done.

I was in no doubt when we left South Africa that having the children with us all day, and all night, every day for six months was going to be a challenge, especially when Shaun and I had got into the very good habit of having a date night once a week, and making time for each other as much as we could in amongst our busy lives. Suddenly faced with no date nights and no nursery school was a daunting image. I write this knowing how ridiculous it must sound to people who don’t have children. I mean why wouldn’t we want to spend all day and all night with our spawn, right? I also write this with the knowledge that parents with grown children often long for the days when the kids were young and innocent, little sponges walking around absorbing details about the world that grown-ups take completely for granted.
Well, what I realised during our travels is that it needn’t have been as daunting as we, or maybe I, had thought. Our little sponges walked around with us doing exactly that, absorbing the world. They were energetic, happy, bouncy, sometimes tired and grumpy, but usually incredible three and four year olds. There is nothing more we could have asked of them, and I know with every fibre of my being how much they loved spending every day and every night with us. We were theirs entirely.

I will freely admit that I didn’t fully appreciate before we left, just how much I would come to treasure this time as a family, possibly, no, definitely more so than actually travelling the States. We have been asked so many times, “What was your favourite part?” and my honest answer, is having that incredible time with my family. Seeing all the things we saw, and being in some of the most epic places definitely gave our trip a sense of purpose and wonderment, but I think the true beauty of those five months for me was watching my children grow and learn, taking in their world, and being able to shape each day the way we wanted to. We had no nursery school we had to be at, no after school activities and no meetings (this isn’t entirely true of Shaun and Skype, but the kids and I escaped it). Sure we had daily survival basics, grocery shopping, and other mundane life tasks, budgeting, finding accommodation, many of which were stressful make no mistake, but each day was ours to throw ourselves into, either with barrels of laughter and energy, or with pyjamas and a mug of hot chocolate. I can’t imagine not having had this time with them, it is such an important age, an age when their reasoning is shaped, their logic formed and ideas of who they are and how they fit into the world expanded. It is an incredible blessing to have been given this time with them, so completely and without reserve. I really do know how lucky I am.

I think the early years with my children left me a little scared, a little scarred even. Having two kids fourteen months apart and no family around to help left its mark. Shaun and I were worn flat for many months, it took more than a lot out of us, as any parent of a baby can attest. Each day was a survival to get to the next… but now here we are! An incredible age of wonder and joy, from not just one child but two. I can say without hesitation that children bring joy, and loads of it! Sure the first few years can be backbreaking work, but the rewards when you can start enjoying the world with your children, seeing things through their fresh, untainted eyes, and feeding off the endless joy and giggles that seem to spill from every corner of the house, answering questions you haven’t thought about possibly since you were their age, and being challenged on your ‘truths’ … it is magnificent!

The brilliance of the past six months is going to be hard to let go of, giving my children over to a school system I don’t control, and being ruled by a time that I cannot mold, carries weight over me. Had I not just experienced my last six months, I would know no different, but I feel like a secret box of wonder has been shown to me. While I have never been against homeschooling, I have also never felt I had what it takes to see it through. Maybe at this age I am allowed to embrace every moment with them and not feel like I am depriving them of the schooling system, there is time for all that. I find myself revisiting my capabilities as a mother and shaper of my children’s world. I don’t known yet what the next while holds for us, and maybe our path will be more or less dictated for us, but it is great to be able to see my children’s education in a different light. These last six months have truly opened my eyes, and filled my heart to overflowing.

Mar 01

Cape Town skyline at dusk.

5 Months of Perspective

By Mary | Cape Town, Musings, Our Travels | No Comments

Although it took a little more than closing my eyes, tapping the heels of my red shoes together and repeating “There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home”, I feel rather like Dorothy returning home after her adventures in the Land of Oz. What an incredible story, but man is it good to be home!! Waking up in sunny South Africa, in our beautiful city that looks even better than it did when we left, makes it hard to believe that what we did for the past 5 months actually happened. The ending to this story could very easily be, ‘and they woke up and it was all a dream’… except for our all-consuming jetlag, lily-white complexions and lack of a house. Yes, our homelessness knows no bounds.

In planning for our trip we decided to rent our house out for 6 months in order to help cover the costs. Obviously our returning early means little to the munchkins living in our home, so until they move on, we have made camp in what can only be described as truly exceptional friends homes. We arrived at Melissa and Austin’s house on Friday morning, and positively exploded. To be clearer, I should say our luggage exploded and we collapsed. Bar the light fittings, we’ve had clothing hanging from almost every available surface. These last few days have looked like someone has begun a laundry service from the Fagan’s normally beautifully ordered home. With the utmost grace and warmth though, we have been absorbed into the home and the now 4 adult 4 child home is pulsing with life at all hours of the day and night, it is wonderful! Chaotic, yes, but after missing our friends like we have, coming back to this is exciting and replenishing.

In fact, since we arrived home on Friday, we have had no lack of excitement. We barely had time to unpack (actually we didn’t at all, we decided to sleep Friday away instead) before heading off to a 35th birthday party on Friday night, where Lincoln and Lola managed to convince their best little friend Owen, to stay awake with them until almost 2am when he passed out, only half an hour before they themselves were herded to the sleeping chambers. Eastern Standard Time seems somewhat tricky to get out of the system!

The following days consisted of beautiful sunny beach visits, 30th birthday’s and lunch’s with dearly missed friends and family, all of which exciting, none of which we were fully awake for. We reserved fully awake status for 2am when we should have been getting our extensively desired beauty rest. One week on however, and we seem to be finding our feet again.

What jet-lag looks like at 2.30am ... and then 2.30pm!

In my sleep-deprived state during our migration from Wyoming… to New York… to London… to Cape Town, I neglected to fully illuminate the motives behind our final demise. After much interrogation from friends and family (and questioning into whether I was pregnant again – I mean really! It’s been almost 4 years since our winning streak and we’ve gleaned a thing or two on how babies are made since then), I thought it best to fill the rest of you in.

To put it simply, we were just tired. Tired of packing, tired of moving, tired of trying to fit in more than is humanly possible into 24 hours, tired of lots more besides, but more important than what we were tired of, is what we were looking forward to! We wanted friends, family, summer, stability, not living out of a suitcase, picnics on our beach, good food, date nights, our bicycles, our own beds, abundant kitchen utensils, homes with gardens, homes with more than one bedroom, homes without neighbours below us!.. a warm sun, South African accents, a currency that’s worth something in its own land, a nation of colour, a nation of diversity, a population that allows their children to run free… we longed for home.

Our arrival back in Cape Town looked rather epic.

What we learned in our 5 months in the States, is that the grass isn’t always greener. The grass may be a different shade of green, longer in some places, denser in others, but as with everything in life, there is no ‘one size fits all’ in the world’s diverse network of grasses. While I personally prefer grass that is allowed to grow on it’s own, with guidance and corrections, but ultimately forging its own path, others may enjoy the constant fussing and supervision given to the particular cultivars grown in the States. This was one of my biggest struggles while over there.

I believe I am a good parent, worrying when I should but also giving my children enough rope to explore and enjoy without constantly hovering and shielding them from every possible eventuality. Maintaining the belief that I am a responsible parent was challenged with every trip I made to the shops with the kids, and every walk we took down a sidewalk in a big city. There was always someone there to comment on how dangerous ‘insert chosen activity’ was; hiding under clothing racks in the shops, helping mum choose items off a shelf, jumping in the snow on the sidewalk, scooting down a hill, being further than 3 meters from me at any given time – it was exhausting, but the list was endless. Shop attendants fussed and passersby in the street commented. I can’t imagine what they would have done had they seen our kids climbing mountains or bouldering in the scary outdoors. There is most certainly a balance and obviously children can’t be left to their own devices entirely, but I felt like things were often a bit screwy with American parents, pandering and protecting younger children but letting high school age kids run amok, with teens telling parents when they are going out instead of asking, and fostering a culture of ‘what we want when we want it’ regardless of the consequences. I’m not saying South African teens are exempt from this, but it just feels amplified and mostly condoned there.

I am also certainly not saying this about everyone in or from the States, this is a general feel, more prominent in some areas than others, but what I can say is that when my South African friend introduced me to an American mum who let her 3 year old drink water from a fountain out of another child’s shoe, I immediately warmed to her. So there definitely are parents in the States who parent like I do, but they seem to be few and far between. I often felt judged, criticised, and as a result completely stressed out and on edge when I was out with the kids. I freaked out more, I reprimanded more, and behaved a bit like a Mum I would ordinarily feel sympathy for. This played no small part in our wanting our relaxed and happy Cape Town.

There are most certainly things about the States that we will miss, like not having to glue your handbag to your hip or having at least 7 shop attendants on hand making sure you can find what you need, but as far as we are concerned, good customer service and reduced crime just doesn’t beat a country with as much to offer as ours, despite the incredible things we saw in our 5 months there. Growing up in a third world country, the impressions most of us have about first world countries is hugely inaccurate, we believe there are no problems, that they have it all sorted. We give our country too little credit and always imagine everywhere else to be better. While the crime and poverty are definitely less, they have been replaced with other problems, it seems people are incapable of living without them. Visiting a ‘promised land’ like America offers a perspective on our own that is both inspiring and heartwarming. We have many issues in our country and it certainly isn’t all easy sailing, but no one chooses to live in Africa because it’s easy, you choose to live in Africa because of what it has to offer. To impart some of our newfound perspective, we are truly lucky to be able to call Africa our home. This land is something special, I hope everyone gets a chance to see that.

Interestingly, and absolutely coincidently, I am about to head out for the evening with 3 great girl friends, all of whom are American! I hope I don’t get a beating for my only half glowing account of their beautiful country 🙂

Ps. If you have somehow read this post in isolation, please read all my tales of how incredible American soil is! It truly is amazing. This is a post on how happy we are to be home… we certainly gushed about the States while we were there though! Xxx

Feb 03

Silly times with my handsome hubby

A Rare Moment of Clarity

By Mary | Musings, Our Travels | No Comments

Since I was a little girl, I’ve spent hours daydreaming, making plans about what I would do with my life, where I would live, how I would live and who it would be with. Some of you know me as a list girl – that is not a new thing. I have had lists running in my head ever since I can remember.

This evening at dinner, I voiced something to Shaun that solicited only a wry smile and a knowing nod from him. I told him, that over the last few weeks, I had been thinking quite a lot about my life and how it had panned out. The fact that I had done almost nothing the way I had planned to, bar my profession, but that was always hazy so hard to go wrong there. I was going to get married at 26, to a gorgeous dark haired man, preferably Spanish. We were going to have 3, maybe 4 kids. The first was going to be a boy, so he could look after his younger sister, and I was happy to not plan the sexes of the rest. My kids were going to have straight dark hair, and I spent hours toying with how long I would let my son grow his hair before he reached that critical stage where strangers comment on your ‘daughter’ instead of your son. There is a crucial limit there! I was going to have my first child at 28 and space them every 2 years so the gap wasn’t too big or too small…..

I know most of you are starting to see a pattern here. Firstly, Shaun is not Spanish. Not even if I trace his roots waaaay back!… so I knew I was starting to veer off course. Not a train smash right, I could still mother the dark haired kids I’d spent hours daydreaming about.
…And then there was Lola. Girl, blond, curly… Beautiful.

Of my list of plans, I got the ‘… gorgeous’ and ‘… man’ part right, and that’s about it. I married a surfer-blond, long curly haired, hippy man, 2 years before I had on my plan. Had my first child a year before I turned 28. My second the very next year, in the wrong order, and have subsequently waited substantially more than 2 years for the next.

But it has taken me 31 years, travelling many thousands of kilometers from home and being out of my comfort zone, to realise that my plans could never have turned out as wonderfully, or perfectly suited to me, as my life has, and I can stop worrying that I’m 2 years past when I should have had my 3rd baby! It might sound ridiculous, but I am still trying to ‘plan’ even though I’m so useless at it, instead of just enjoying the tiny particulars that make my life mine, and rolling with the changes when I decide to change my mind!

Shaun has never been a ‘plan man’, and my pathetic attempt at making plans has always fitted in really well with his attitude. So all these years of planning when we will do something, and how it will be done, has been something he’s been happy to indulge, because it almost never happens that way. So tonight at dinner when I got the wry smile and knowing nod, I knew he had been waiting a long time for me to grasp this insight, and while this realisation might not look so profound on paper, I feel an overwhelming sense of relaxation about my life. I don’t have to follow the plans I made when I was ten, and if I don’t actually know what my plan is, then that is ok too. It is a liberating feeling to have opened a chapter that hasn’t been written in yet.