Hidden messages in Shakespeare

As Winter touches our lives with its icy fingers, I remember my childhood in Zululand. Winter never got down to freezing and it was pretty mild as Winters go. But I can distinctly visualise the time my legs turned multi coloured. Blues and purples, pinks and white mottled splotches. Physiologic livedo reticularis (multi coloured legs) is when the blood vessels constrict in the chill and as you warm up, the skin turns a rosy pink and you no longer resemble a chameleon. But strangely enough this usually only happens to children and young women. Do we grow thick skinned as we age? Do the chameleon cells in our legs take fright or is it that we grow wiser and make sure that we have warmer clothing? It didn't help that our school uniforms were skirts that did nothing to protect our legs from cold winds and chilly drafts. The boys had shorts and they pulled their socks higher on their legs to offer a little bit of chill protection, but us girls had no such option. One enterprising girl brought a throw rug to school and whoever sat next to her got to share in her snuggly warmth for the day. I would sit and trace each blob of colour on my leg with my fingertip and I certainly did not learn a thing that day as I pondered the wonders of a body under stress. We joked that Winter was on a Tuesday in our part of the world, because the cold never really lasted long at all. But Winter often lasted a whole week or two. Oh woe is me for the awful cold I had to endure. Ha, nope. It was a terrible life we lived in the semi-tropical corner of Africa, hot in Summer and well, coolish in Winter. I was speaking to Mary last week and she was shocked to hear that in Africa there are mountains and snow and water sometimes freezes in the hinterland of the continent. A distant uncle of hers died in Tunisia and she had no idea where that was. So, "know it all me", told her of course. Then we found a photo of the uncle online and he was well wrapped up in an army issue greatcoat. The blurb said it was taken in Egypt and again she was shocked to hear that the Sahara could get cold. I suppose we all have our preconceptions of what life in other countries is like. I was lucky in that my dad had served in Egypt and Italy during the war and sometimes regaled us with stories of soldiers getting their tongues stuck on frozen steel poles in Italy or rocks that exploded in fires lit in the Sahara. You see, I didn't really miss out on education while I contemplated my multi-coloured legs. My education was well rounded with stories told to us by adults in our lives about the dangers of carrying white mice on the back of a galloping horse, or not putting Euphorbia sap into your eyes. And I might not be a rocket scientist, but I have an eclectic knowledge of useless information. (Well, that was what my father called his collection of facts that titillated our minds.)

I saw on the news about the floods in Verona, Italy this week. How awful to see those ancient and historic buildings being battered by the waves and washes of the floods. My mind went to Romeo and Juliet and Shakespeare. Verona, where a thirteen year old girl was being railroaded into a loveless marriage with a man twice her age. And she had no say in that matter at all. Looking at the tragic story of the young lovers, there was a subtle underlying story of a girl becoming a feminist. She chose to sleep with Romeo against the wishes of her parents and others. How powerful she would have felt to make that choice. A move that would thumb her nose at convention and expectations. The bargaining chip that was her virginity, was a currency that she could wield to her own ends. To allow her to make her own future. The patriarchal expectations were that she would follow her father's edicts to the letter and blindly believe that he knew what would suit her best. Her commodity as a political or business pawn is blasted out of the water when she breaks with tradition and proposes marriage to Romeo. Firstly, the idea that she was the one to make the proposal is radical and secondly, she initiates all the romantic moves in this relationship. I do wonder how the audiences of Tudor England took to the notion of a young girl choosing her future. Remember that Juliet was not even allowed to be played by a girl on the stage at the Globe. But perhaps it was a comment on the life of Queen Elizabeth 1 and her choosing not to be married and hand over her power to a male monarch? William Shakespear's parents were dyed in the wool Catholics and lost most of their wealth and position in society when Elizabeth came to the throne. So, if Shakespeare was making a comment about the Queen, he had to do it subtly and without offending her. After all, she could cut off his head if she so wished. Was he warning Elizabeth to take care with her persecution of catholics? As a playwright he was definitely crafting a message that the man in the street might miss. After all, Shakespeare was a very clever man. But did you know that he only had about 7 years of basic schooling? Just a side note, did you also know that Queen Elizabeth 1 was racist? She sent a note in 1596 that "there are of late divers blackmoores brought into this realme, of which kinde of people there are allready too manie" and then she told Casper Van Senden to take them and ship them off to Spain and Portugal. This was just after Shakespeare's play "Othello". Yup, Shakespeare was sneaky with his messages and no doubt got a thrill when his messages bore fruit and irritated the Queen.

My eldest granddaughter is thirteen this year. The same age as Juliet in Shakespeare's play. She has as much education as the playwright, but much more diverse than his would have been. She plays sport and the piano, she chooses her own friends and one day in the far distant future, she will choose whom she will marry and I very much doubt whether she will be impressed by a Romeo. Her criteria will be things like kindness and caring, someone she can admire in a diverse array of ways. Well, I hope so anyway. We all look to our parents to offer us a model of whom we should choose to share our lives. Do we teach our children to only befriend others like themselves? Or embrace other cultures? Listen carefully to opinions even when they do not match our own? We had two young men over for dinner the other night and they both had an app on their phone that tells you if you are related to them. And yes, even though the one was from Utah and the other from Australia, we were related. 6th cousins twice removed for the American and 5th cousins for the Australian. The one man asked if I would ever visit America and I told him I had no desire to visit the continent or the country. I could see the hurt in his eyes, but I really couldn't change my answer. I have no yearning for the wild wild west or the Grand Canyon or the towering redwoods of Northern California. Maybe it's because I like to visit people I know and not places or things. Is that something I learnt from my parents? Our holidays took us to wildlife reserves and beaches, but mostly it took us to share the time with people. Mocambique with the Wagners, Boer war battle sites with the Trollips, Durban market with my grandmother. I really don't want to go anywhere without being with someone I love. I am weird that way.

One of the aerial photos from the media during the floods in Italy, was of an Italian maze that had become totally overgrown. Almost one hundred years of not being pruned and shaped meant that the pathways were non-existent and no one could actually walk through them. But from the air, the shapes and twists are evident and beautifully intricate. The difference between a maze and a labyrinth is that the labyrinth doesn't have any dead ends or false leads. The pathway to the centre twists and turns, but is one long path that is impossible to go wrong. Looking back at my life I see that my choices sent me down dead end maze legs, but when I focussed on what was important, I followed a labyrinth. It takes an outsider looking down from a height to see the patterns and designs of my life at times. I see the weeds that grow and the leaves that need pruning and shaping, when others marvel at the lacy vista spread out to enjoy. I am too involved in the day to day struggle of life to see the greatness of life. I collected two of my grandchildren from school last week. The rain was persisting down, parents were getting upset at how slow the traffic was flowing, others bumped umbrellas as they jostled for position and I was stuck in traffic. The road had flooded and the water rose up the side of the vehicles. I was unable to move and I could have got angry with the weather or the other parents, but it wouldn't have helped. And finally, I did get to the front of the queue and two very wet children climbed in the car for the drive home. I followed the labyrinth of cars out of the car park, down the road and to their home where warm showers awaited them, not thunder showers but rather the hot kind in a lovely bathroom. Me, I was dry and not too fussed. Thank goodness for cars. As a child we would dash home from school, hiding under trees to avoid the raindrops, letting the water drip off noses and elbows as we hunkered down for that final run to the haven of home. Very few parents collected their children from school no matter the weather. Clarissa's father was the undertaker and she would offer classmates a ride in the hearse, but there were seldom any takers. Times change and so do expectations. I know my expectations change. Almost every day.