Butterfly effect and molasses

Spring is almost sprung and on Sunday we saw our first butterfly. The weather is a little chilly and when I first saw it lying in the dirt, that was my initial thought. That it was just cold and needed a few minutes in front of the heat pump to revive. My daughter fed it some sugar water and still it lay there barely breathing. Outside we could see the daffodils dancing, the magnolia being magnificent and even the gardenias being gorgeous and wishing for a visit from the butterflies. But sadly our monarch butterfly was missing an antenna and must have wandered away from the milkweed plant we have especially for them. The grand circle of life had caught up with our beautiful and fragile butterfly. In Afrikaans they are known as skoenlappers or vlinders which sound so pretty as opposed to the idea of butter flying through the air like a fat fly on its way to a weight watcher's meeting. As to weight... did you see that the diet industry has spent millions of dollars finding out what the first sign of weight gain is? Seriously, who cares that much? Surely there are better things to spend a researcher's time and effort on? The cure to disease would be on my list. Not where can people obsess about finding fault with their bodies. Anyhow, the first sign of weight gain is apparently the back of the tongue. Yup, I can imagine people staring into a mirror to see if their tongue is fatter than last month. The first outward sign of weight gain is snoring. As the back of your tongue thickens, it blocks your throat when you sleep and you snore. My grandmother snored like a freight train and was not fat. She lived to be 83 years of age but my much thinner Gogo (maternal grandmother) died without snoring at age 57. Okay, I am fudging things a little bit. Gogo had TB and had every right to be just skin and bone. What is healthier? A bit of junk in the trunk or disease? I have a brother-in-law that tells me fat people are unworthy of being loved. Silly man has never been married and hopefully never will be.

As a child we were given a tablespoon of molasses and a bottle of milk at school every day. The milk was icy cold and delicious but the molasses was, to put it mildly, bitter and nasty. When I complained, no doubt with tantrums and tears, a teacher held my nose and another poured the treacley goo into my open mouth. This morning, while making my usual oat porridge, I was happily spooning in the  molasses and I stopped in shock. When did my taste buds change? I can no longer glug down ice cold creamy milk due to a reaction to dairy but I will have to observe my personal history and find out what happened to the molasses hating child. Was it when gran used it in date loaves? Sneaky inclusions into otherwise tasty desserts come to mind. I made myself some bread and butter pudding for lunch today because of an over abundance of stale white bread and remembered the sultanas and raisin debate my grandmother always had. Which were better? The influences of our childhood now dictate my adult tastes. Yes, I prefer sultanas just as my grandmother did 70 years ago. Why? They were prettier when the sunlight shone through them. Plus my gran would make us flies graveyard slices and those raisins really did remind me of flies. Yes, they were tasty, but there were moments that I had to close my eyes to take the first bite in case my over imaginative brain got the better of me. Sago pudding was always frogs eggs and as I matured I played my own word games with my kids and their friends. Two tablespoons of powdered milk and two of sugar with a smidge of water, became 'porridge' in case people thought I was a bad mother for feeding my children homemade condensed milk. The power of words. I have been told that I am a weaver of words and use them like a paintbrush to sculpt images. Of course the words we use can come back to bite us. Softly, softly I dance around my memories and reshape them to suit my need to be a hero. 

It has been 10 years since I was encouraged to write and illustrate a book about my muddled memories. I sat on the couch or at the desk and hobbled together stories I wished to preserve. I had been writing my 'blog' for over 15 years before that. Emails to friends and family from around the world. I wrote mainly because I missed the company of those friends in my life. When we immigrated to New Zealand, one friend wrote me a letter in that first week. And I cried and cried as I grieved the loss of that connection in person. Danila had moved from Mauritius as a child, so perhaps she could feel my loneliness at being in a strange country with no idea what to do or even where the nearest doctor was. And I appreciated that kind gesture of a slip of paper wishing me well on my move. I was fortunate that my husband had a job, sadly badly paid and barely enough to pay the bills. The walls of our rental home were dripping with mildew and snails decorated the bedroom curtains. We could hear the violence of domestic arguments raging through the paper thin walls and wondered if our children were safe. A so-called friend came over and ran up our internet bill to horrendous proportions and it was touch and go whether we had to sell our car to pay for it. I applied for work and was told that my references from South Africa were worthless. My husband's boss was a bully and a nasty man who short changed Barry's wages because he knew we didn't know the law. Second hand furniture and budgeting to the nth degree was our coping strategy.  We dare not tell our families in South Africa what was happening because of the belief that we would give up and move back. Even the cost of a stamp for a letter had to be budgeted for until we were able to pay the phone bill one small increment at a time. I phoned two friends in similar situations once a week. We shared stories of how our husbands were coping with the stresses of their new jobs and of where to go for help with day to day life. I was ill and went to the doctor, when he sent me off for blood tests, I was too scared to have them done in case they cost more than we could afford, only to find out a year later that they were free. So, yes writing has been my stress valve and I am grateful for you all being my psycho-therapists.