Lepidoptera
Collector’s delight
How many times
In your fluttering flight
Have you heard the faint whoosh
Of a butterfly net
And wondered aloud
If your maker you’d met?
writing
Writing Rocks
We are blessed with a wild, pebbly beach just four kilometres away from home. On that beach is a sampling of the geology of New Zealand, polished and rounded from the sea.
At first glance, the rocks are all nondescript greywacke.
Look more closely, down by the waterline, and you find a veritable rainbow of metamorphic rocks.
Brick red rocks laced with white,
Green serpentine, mottled to look like miniature Earths,
Translucent quartz,
Smooth pebbles black as night,
Chalky white rocks like petrified marshmallows,
Improbably pink rocks flecked with sparkling quartz (said to be the sweat of one of the early Maori chiefs in the area, produced when he challenged the taniwha in the Rakaia River).
When we first moved here, I brought home a pocketful of colourful stones every time we went to the beach.
I quickly realised I couldn’t keep doing that, or I’d end up with hundreds of jars full of rocks.
Now I allow myself one rock each beach visit. One rock that speaks to me. A rock that is more than all the other rocks on the beach.
The rock might bounce around in my pocket for a few weeks after I pick it up. I’ll pull it out and look at it, finger it in the pocket, feeling it’s shape, weight, and imperfections.
Most rocks then find a home in the cobble-lined drainage ditch that carries rainwater away from the house.
The very best rocks—those that whisper stories to me and fit my palm perfectly—become my writing rocks. These pebbles sit on my desk and occupy my hands while I’m contemplating a new plot or considering a character’s strengths and weaknesses. They capture the churning crucible of the earth’s crust, the rush of mountain streams, and the wildness of the sea. They tell me their stories, and I tell them mine.
Margaret Mahy Playground
For those unfamiliar with Down the Back of the Chair, The Great White Man-Eating Shark, and The Man Whose Mother Was a Pirate, Margaret Mahy was a prolific author of children’s books and young adult novels. She lived just over the hill from Christchurch, in Governor’s Bay from the late 1970s until her death in 2012.
Her books are quirky, adventuresome, and often wildly creative.
The recently opened Margaret Mahy Playground is also quirky, adventuresome, and creative.
We don’t frequent playgrounds anymore—our kids are mostly past the age where they insist on playground stops—but when we were in town the other day to visit the (finally) reopened art museum, we decided to check out the new playground.
Water, sand, a flying fox, climbing structures, the “fastest slide ever” (according to my daughter who flew off the end of it like a champagne cork), and a hill marked with contour lines…Horrakapotchkin! The playground was awesome. Even my too-cool-for-playgrounds teenage son went down the slide (twice), sent water through the sluice system, and delighted to find the sensors that turned on sprays of water.
Best of all, there is a path out the back of the playground down to a dock on the river.
The only downside to the playground is that all the surfaces are concrete or rubber mat. A necessary choice of materials, I’m sure—even on the chilly, rainy day we visited, the playground was crowded. Grass would be trampled to death in a day.
One of the best playgrounds I’ve ever seen, and a great tribute to Margaret Mahy.
Secret Garden
Years ago, my husband installed a mirror in our hedge. I still catch myself wondering about the garden on the other side.
There is an arch in the hedge,
Dark and green,
And a gate.
It beckons.
Calls me to step through
To the secret garden
Beyond.
At work over here,
I glance up.
The far side is green,
Lush,
With clipped shrubs
And well-weeded flowers.
I wonder at the gardener
Who can maintain such beauty.
I struggle so on this side!
A bird flashes by,
Glimpsed through the arch,
I am sure it was red,
With a long tail.
What exotic creatures live over there
On the other side?
I stand, stretching my aching back.
I step closer to the arch.
Was there movement?
There is someone on the other side.
The gardener?
I would like to meet her.
Would she show me around her garden?
Boldly I approach the gap.
I see she, too, walks to greet me.
When I catch her eye,
I draw up short.
A slow smile spreads across our faces
As we recognise one another.
365 Days of Food
Here I am at the end of my 365 Days of Food blog challenge. Reflecting on the year, I am pleased–and a little surprised–I’ve managed to blog every day. Yes, some days were…um…half-hearted at best, and some posts were written in advance, to be posted automatically on days when I had no internet access. So there was a little fudging, but only a little.
And what did I learn from this exercise?
I gained a heightened appreciation for how much of my daily life revolves around food—planting, caring for, harvesting, preserving, preparing, eating…and cleaning up from all of the above. There were times during the year when I felt that dealing with food was the only thing I was doing, and I wondered if I needed to get a life.
But what is more basic to life than food? What is more fundamental to human cultures than sharing food with friends and family? On the last day of the year, I come full-circle—back to my first blog post of the year:
“[Food] feeds us physically and emotionally. It is an integral part of our celebrations, and is the scaffold on which our days are built.”
After a year of blogging about food, I would add that it underpins our economy, is woven into the fabric of human history, impacts the health of the planet, reflects our personal values, and is an inseparable part of our identity.
Thank you for reading and commenting all through the past year. Though it is the end of my 365 Days of Food challenge, it is not the end of my blogging. There will be more…maybe even a new challenge for next year.
Stay tuned!
Summer
When the question is not, “What is there to eat?”
But, “What needs to be eaten?”
When bringing in the day’s vegetables takes all morning.
And doing something with them takes the rest of the day.
When you worry, not about what to eat,
But how to eat it all.
When you begin to think that life is nothing
But picking and processing vegetables.
When you know
You will appreciate all this work
In the dead of winter
When you are still eating
Peas, corn, cherries, strawberries, green beans…
But today
All you want
Is to sit
For five minutes
And not
think
about
food.
Siren Call
I fidget at the computer.
Perhaps the greenhouse needs watering.
I fling open the office door.
The smell of grass reminds me I need to mow.
I type a few words
Then delete them.
Do the goats need their hooves trimmed?
Maybe I should go have a look.
I check my e-mail.
I watch a pair of sparrows build their nest.
I should be working, but
You know, if I just did half an hour of weeding now
There would be less to do on the weekend.
Perhaps an early lunch.
I’ll sit in the sun, bare feet in the grass.
And then, perhaps…
I will give in, and follow the siren’s call
To the garden.
Bienestar
The day’s wind has died
Dust rises from my hoe
And falls in place.
The body is tired,
But at peace
In the rhythm of work,
In the calm setting of the sun
In the midges wafting like ghosts
Through the silence.
Heat gives way to cool air
And the scent of the sea.
Purple clouds glow orange
At the edges
In a turquoise sky.
I pause to rest,
To listen
To breathe
The smell of my garden.
I should stop,
Go inside,
Wash the dirt off my arms and legs.
One more minute.
A few more weeds.
Then one last gaze.
The peas glow in the gold
Of the evening sun.
The onions stand proud.
The lettuces reach up in supplication.
I see it
And declare it good.
Fridge Magnets
“Amby the Ambulance says dial 111 in an emergency!”
“Lincoln Dental—Where great smiles are made!”
“Healthline—24 hour free health advice!”
“Ace High Plumbing—Home of the royal flush!”
The front of the refrigerator is plastered with magnets from various businesses and organisations. The magnets hold up the critical documents that form the command centre of the house:
- This week’s calendar, showing who is taking which bus to and from school, who has band practice when, and who is out of town or needs extra money for a school field trip.
- Library check-out receipts so we know when we have to return the latest clutch of books.
- A running grocery list which I add to as I finish off things in the kitchen.
- Emergency phone numbers.
Move to the side of the fridge, and you leave the rational, logical command centre and enter the twilight zone of fridge magnet poetry. With two whole sets of fridge magnet words, and a house full of…um…creative people…you never know what you might see there.
“Together they must beat the monkeys
Who eat their friends
These windy sunny days
Still my head aches from the blow”
“Want
Quick
Are
You
Juice
Girl
Man”
“Want
Drive
Need
Lust
Or
Reveal”
If I had to analyse the family on the basis of our fridge magnets, I would say we are a well-organised bunch of lunatics!
Girl
Girl.
She walks tall,
Plans,
Creates,
Loves,
Laughs.
Considers,
Debates,
Decides.
Imagines,
Does.
Is.
In the space given to her–
The space too small
To hold all that is
Girl,
The space with limits,
Rules,
Expectations that do not meet hers.
Expectations too low:
Strength,
Independence,
Endurance,
Brains.
Expectations too high:
Beauty,
Popularity,
Helplessness.
Make way.
Make space for her.
Space for steely resolve.
Space for sweat.
Space for skinned knees and
Dogged determination.
Because Girl
She walks tall.
She
Is.
Robinne Weiss 