the mind numb and it's relief

A mind numbing conversation with The Beauty may go something like this:



Whilst driving:

her - what's that car doing?
me- driving
her - why?
me - I guess it's going somewhere like us...
her - what's that car doing?
me - driving
her - why?
me - I suppose it's going somewhere
her - what's that car doing?
me - driving
her - why?

Sometimes to amuse myself and to vary the routine (I am very childish) I affect utter enthusiasm and surprise after say the 32rd rendition - What? A car! On the road here with us? Where? Where's it going? Oh, to the seaside? The moon!



The level of interesting and high brow conversation in the house is such that by the time my dh gets home from work often I too have sunk to a the depths of shallow stilted language that would suit a slightly trained chimp. There's only so many times I can feign interest in Didier Drogba. Perhaps I should try to spin out a project based on his home country (the Ivory Coast if your interested) or something similar in a typical-book-example-fun-home-educating way. Only the mind numb creeps up on me and all I want to do is knit in the sun or get back to my current read (S. Faulks, A week in December). I am truly amazed (and it's nice to have the mental enthusiasm that being amazed brings out) at the capacity for my son's joint abilities to remember inane facts about their favourite players and also amazed at why certain players are their favourites (Drogba because he has hair like Bob Marley: Felix loves the Buffalo Soldier YouTube film with rastas in military uniforms). I wonder at the lack of ability say in remembering times tables or how to tell the time, but very clearly knowing how many goals Milner scored last season or who won the Barclay's Premier League is far far more interesting. To them. I think we should study the Bible (not that I am religious, just beacuse it's a historically/culturally intertesting book), or some classical literature (does reading the Usborne version or Hercules count?) Or wonder vaguely if they ought to be able to tell Brahms from Beethoven after the first twelve bars by now.... Only I can't muster the enthusiasm to contemplate teaching myself this stuff first off in order to pass off as being reasonably well versed.



They can recite The Owl and the Pussycat. They know how to light fires and play cards. Isaac knows how to bake about ten different types of cakes, Esmé can work a camera and programme the washing machine to the precise setting I request. Felix draws, and draws and draws. I don't know about balance. I don't know anyone who does receive a balanced education. They love each other, they annoy each other. We do very random things, repetative things. Boring or 'pointless' things. We sat today and made daisy caterpillars (you know, where you find a nice long sturdy daisy and then snap the stalks off many others and thread them onto the one first stalk), spent a good half hour searching for four leaf clovers (found none). Even though I teetered on the edge of madness with a headache and feverish chills I was battered by Esmé 's fog-horn voice into making play dough, and then glad too when it was played with for a couple of hours by all. (I recite these things to make myself feel better of course) It's mind numb and amazement in almost equal doses, very rarely interspersed with some relaxation and plenty of tidying up. Right now I am amazed at the number of jigsaws on the floor.. what, 17? And mind numbed by the idea of tidying them up.. who me? Perhaps the relaxation will occur when my dh gets home (after he does the shop in Sainsbury's I just phoned him with and after the 13 hr day he has already worked.... I can't quite see that he'll be wanting to assemble dinner and look after children while I take a bath.



I'm not exactly moaning, here, more musing the workings of a day and how women (ok, and some men) cope. Often they, we, don't, very well. I did ten minutes of yoga outside on the platform surrounded by leaves and green and the cluckings of a broody hen. It was pretty nice. The green moss under my bare feet went a long way in discharging some negative energy I accumulated. Looking around at my garden and picking some tangy lemony sorrel to eat was satisfying. Re-arranging my sitting room, lugging sofa's and cleaning long forgotten places helped put me back in my home after time away from it. Picking out balls of wool from my stash and spending a while with it on the side in the kitchen looking at it now and again wondering what it shall become in my hands later is very pleasing. There are ways, quiet ways, to relive and escape and recharge. I just hope in his own way my dh finds these moments in his very different days too.



Thanks Kat, for your inspsiring photo's and post that inspired this similar post :)