Dancing amongst the stars with feathers in our hair

I think I could have been a Pythagorean follower back in the BC days. Pythagoras refused to eat beans because he said they have a soul. I know that my beliefs are slightly different to his and it's just that I can't stand the smell of bean anything. Bean soup makes me gag and always has. So having a soul or me gagging at the smell means no beans in my cooking wheelhouse. Whereas, my husband could survive on baked beans on toast ten times a day. And he ate raw cabbage and cauliflower like it was a treat. Crunch, crunch right in my ear as I endeavoured to watch some romantic comedy on TV.  Not exactly the romantic vibe I was going for especially when his noxious gases were added to the ambiance. Women's intestines are longer than mens. Perhaps due to the need for more energy from a smaller amount of food during pregnancy. Some would say that this allows the food to stay in the gut about 9 hours longer than men and why the gasses that men pass are that much more potent. I have no idea if this is true, but let's just say that it makes sense. My husband was not the most romantic man in the land and he seriously thought that building something for me was better than a bunch of flowers. Often the something he built was not something I valued in the least. As he lay dying, he decided that building me a chicken coop would be the best and his final gift to me. I told him, chickens take effort and I really didn't want them. But he said "I will know that with a hutch full of chickens you will never grow hungry. You would always have eggs to eat." Aaah that was actually quite romantic to think that once he was gone that I would starve to death without him. No, I did not get a hutch of chickens as my final farewell hoorah. And no I haven't starved. 

My grandsons tell me that one of them talks in his sleep. Unfortunately he inherited that trait from me. I have been known to wander the house at night while fast asleep and one night even hid in a cupboard after witnessing something scary. As I matured, the talking in my sleep changed to something else. I could have whole conversations without waking up at all. My husband was one of those men who are goal oriented and once on the road to a destination, he would not stop. This was not usually a problem unless a child wanted a potty break or piss stop as I might have referred to it. Negotiating where and when to stop was my forte, my superpower and often resulted in heated discussions about who am I to tell the driver what to do and when to do it. Anyhow, one night we were travelling from our hometown of Empangeni to Cape Town on the other end of the country. A distance of 1,800 km (1120 miles) or about 20 hours of driving. The four children were all asleep in the back of the car and at least not fighting or threatening to kill each other. It was peaceful after a day of whining and feeding and singing and cajoling and games etc. I sat in the front and watched the road and apparently slept with my eyes wide open. The next day, yes, after 20 hours of driving non-stop, my husband turned to me and said "Wow, that family of porcupines crossing the road was a once in a lifetime event for me and I'm so glad you saw it too." Huh? Nope, no memory of said porcupines and their piglets. No memory of talking to my husband at 2 o'clock in the morning about how excited I was to see them. He looked at me with shock and assured me that I had spoken clearly, my eyes were open and I had definitely been wide awake. Nope, nope and nope. I was sure he was reassessing my sanity and if he really knew me at all. Had I spoken to him at other times when asleep? Was I possessed by nightmares? Or demons? Especially after I had insisted on taking our very young children on a lion hunt. My husband was born and bred in the city and the wilds where real lions roamed was something new to him. But he took it all in with equanimity, usually. On that day you could see the fear in his eyes when I piled the kids in the car armed only with feathers and a stick. I might have forgotten to mention that it was Antlions we were hunting and feathers and small sticks are the perfect weapons of mass destruction. Antlions known as Myrmeleontidea to the educated are a species of small insects that live under soft sand and can be lured out by the tickle of a feather. Antlions think the tickle is an insect in distress and the perfect snack. You put the captured lion on your hand and watch as it scuttles backwards until you release it once again to the wild. Real lion hunts are a little bit more fraught with danger and require a lot more bravery than I possess. Although I am partial to hunting with a camera rather than a rifle. Obviously. Pacifist Pat and all that stuff.

I watched the film version of October sky called Rocket Boys, which I thoroughly enjoyed by the way. And I remembered lying on my back on the grass and watching as Sputnik flew across the sky. But are my memories real? After all, I was only 4 years old when Sputnik was launched. Was it another satellite? We lay on the lawn as a family and my father pointed out star clusters with their names as we waited until a tiny white dot traversed the sky. So exciting to imagine an object the size of a beach ball out there at the edge of the universe. Well, outside Van Allen's belt anyway. It weighed 83 kg (184 lbs). Shucks that is less than the weight of a fridge or a small woman. Sputnik lasted three weeks before re-entering Earth's atmosphere and burning up. It flew just over 900 km high, in fact closer to Earth than our drives from Empangeni to Cape Town. No, I doubt they would have seen a family of porcupines out there, too dark maybe. Sorry, just my warped sense of humour at play. I gave a talk at church on Sunday and a lady gave me a compliment and said she always enjoyed my talks. I was quite shocked because she did not seem like a person who would be on the same wavelength as me humour wise. Anyhow back to space stuff. Many years later we watched Haley's comet fly by in 1986. Standing in my parents backyard, we squinted and struggled to see this famous comet that really looked like a blurry smudge. My youngest children were 4 and 6 years of age and I wonder if Haley would have the same impact as Sputnik had on me. My parents were still alive and my father was able to once more point out clusters of stars to my children. And talking about stars, we have recently witnessed the rise of the Pleiades sisters in the sky to herald the start of Maori new year. One thing I like about Maori new year, is that you don't have to wait for midnight to celebrate. The stars rise early in the morning and I can get to bed at a reasonable hour. In Greek mythology the seven sisters are the children of Atlas and Pleione and were transformed into stars by Zeus to protect them from the hunter Orion. The stars look blue and some people say that if you have blue eyes, that you are the descendent of one of the sisters who ran away to be with a human. Nope, I know my parents and seriously, I doubt that they were connected in any way with the myths and legends of the Pleiades.  My husband and I witnessed a piece of stardust falling to Earth one night. Green and gold and a tail of silver streaked through the Heavens and vanished over the horizon. Yes, I was awake for that one. No sleeping with my eyes wide open that night. It was also the night a drunk driver missed us by a hair breath and got my heart pumping like a steam roller. Whew, scary stuff.

Enjoy your day dear folks, be kind to others and if you hunt lions or porcupines, do it by starlight and holding a feather duster and camera.