Blimey!

Early the other morning I noticed that someone had left a new comment on my last post about a tiresome relative named Chlamydia Burana. The comment, from an unknown reader named mnemosynewrites (yes, exactly, mne-mne-mowhat?), read:

"Chanced upon your blog over at Kanlaon and have been a frequent reader since. As a result, I nominated you for a "Kreative Blogger Award", hope you don't mind :)"

Okay folks, it was early in the morning, and because most of you don't know me personally - count yourselves lucky, really - my brain dwells South of Murky in the early morning, and does not resemble anything more evolved than pond life until at least 10 a.m. And definitely not before industrial-strength caffeine has been poured down it.

Neither can I remember where I've parked my reading glasses at that hour, so I tend to wander aimlessly through cyberspace with left hand cupped over left eye to help me focus. As the one-eyed halfwit reading that comment, I understood it to mean that Kanlaon, an excellent blog by a published writer friend in California, had won some award. I made a note to look up the definition of that mnemo-word. I love words, and if there's a new one I haven't met, I'll rush over to shake its hand.

Forward to late morning. Eyes and brain finally operational, I read the comment again and gagged on my toast. A total stranger named Mnemosyne Writes had just informed me that she had nominated me and 6 others for a Kreativ Blogger Award. Moi? Good God! I couldn't imagine what possessed her to do that, but hey, I wasn't about to argue. Without getting all Kate Winslet-y about it, THANK YOU, kind Menemosyne person, for this honor and the rather yummy ego massage that accompanied it. It's come as quite a shock to someone who's still not sure where this young blog is headed, and who continues to hear scary Blighter's Rock rumblings in her head each time she starts a new post.




According to the rules of this award, I have to list 7 things I love. I have to pick 7 other blogs that I think should be awarded the same honor, and inform those bloggers. I also have to link back to the person (above) who graciously nominated me. Without further ado:

Seven Things I Love, and preferrably in large quantities, please:

• the ancient Japanese healing art of Jin Shin Jyutsu
• laughter
• food/eating/cooking
• a good night's sleep
• books
• music
• beautiful things made by hand, like my Aran jumpers from a 91-year-old knitter in Inis Mór, the Aran Islands, Ireland

Seven Blogs I Enjoy:

Belgian Waffle - Eurodrone, unfit mother, slattern, this woman has life in Belgium completely sussed. One recent post almost gave me a seizure. I suspect that a soft heart beats underneath Jaywalker's cheeky madcap exterior.

Posit Ennui - Meet Dr. Y.U. Thropplenoggin, bosh-monger, diabolical wit, master of verbal tomfoolery. His pithycisms also make Twitter a chortlesome place for me to roam. I've learned from messy experience not to have any coffee in my mouth when reading tweets by @thropplenoggin.

This Is Reverb - Ryan Detzel, a young father in Cincinnati, is an ace cook and photographer, and possesses some rather impressive tattoos. He's also a pastor whose message gets me in the gut. No mean feat, seeing as I've always been averse to any form of organized religion. Thankfully, this has never stopped me from walking my own spiritual path where I encounter gems like him.

Self-Help Holds with Jin Shin Jyutsu - Astrid, an experienced Jin Shin Jyutsu practitioner living in Spain shares her knowledge and experience of the ancient healing art that has become my life's passion too. Read her if you want to know how to stop a migraine or heal a wound quickly without pharmaceuticals or plasters. I promise you this stuff works.

Market Manila - Marketman cooks, entertains, travels, and occasionally rants with great style. According to Anthony Bourdain, he also roasts "the best pig in the world." I dream of eating at his table one day, and so do all his readers. Poor man, he will need a very, very long table.

Borealkraut - Alaska-based Borealkraut is a naturalist, teacher, quilter, hiker, cook, mother, blogger who embodies good, sane womanhood to me - something I aspire to, but regularly fall short of. Her prepositions don't dangle either. She has moose in her garden, I have slugs. Whoever said life was fair? She also has a second blog dedicated to cooking, called Borealkitchen.

golfpunkgirl and benbenbenbenben are newlyweds Liana and Ben Joyce in real life. These are their Flickr pages; they blog with photographs rather than words. They shoot only analog film and oh, what sumptuous, transcendent images they create!

Enjoy!

N.B. A growing list of blogs I visit is on the right hand column of this page. Every single one is worth a detour. Special thanks to my blogging 'aunties' The Lizard Meanders, True Love, Six Kids, One Old House, and Kanlaon for their inspiration and encouragement.

Brocantes

I love brocantes!

In Belgium, a brocante is a cross between a flea market and a car boot sale. The Flemish call them rommelmarkts. In my area, they usually take place in villages, beginning in the spring until the end of summer. People lay out their stuff on tarpaulins on the street. They're a good way for folk to clear out the domestic detritus they've uncovered while spring cleaning. Fortunately or unfortunately, they're also a good way to pick up more "finds" - or junk - depending on whose point of view it is.


When the going gets tough, the broke go brocanting. Someone's junk is someone else's treasure. Here are some treasures I picked up recently.


From the Noduwez brocante (above) 2 weeks ago: one bundle of organic rhubarb, one bunch of organic parsley, two young cherry tomato plants, a dozen antique coins from Denmark and Belgium and one antique 2 kilo cast iron weight. Total spent: €5.



And this was my haul from Thursday's brocante in Jandrain: a dozen different antique cast iron weights (of varying weights: 2-kilos, 1-kilo, 500-grams, 200-grams, 100-grams, 50-grams), one Japanese serving plate, 5 French blue-and-white dessert plates with peony design from the 1930s, one ceramic planter with a Chinese garden scene, and 11 small glass bowls from the 1930s, which will be perfect for ice cream or jelly. Total spent: €8.30.

Why do I have a thing for cast iron weights? I have no idea, but I can never resist them. Heck, I'm not sure why I have a thing for most of the things I buy at brocantes. I bought my first one, a 1-kilo weight, a few years ago to use as a doorstop. I am now the proud owner of over 60 cast iron weights, and each time I bring more home Skunk rolls his eyes upward and sighs heavily.

Too bad for him.

The Snark Returns: Introducing Chlamydia Burana (warning: expletives undeleted)

First-time visitors to Megatonlove could be forgiven for thinking this is a gardening blog. It isn't. Only, with spring at full gallop, there's so much beauty outside that it would be churlish not to share some of its beauty with you. Mother's Day morning brought glorious sunshine, love notes and quirky hand-made presents from Legs & Noodle, and the discovery that the Papaver orientalis had started to open. I look forward to these Oriental poppies all winter long. They are the brazen hussies of the garden, their papery scarlet-orange skirts calling to mind the pleated costumes of Issey Miyake. They burst open with devil-may-care abandon, their flower heads unnaturally heavy for their stems, the ruffles and ridges of their mysterious centers coated in inky purple dust. In a few days they're gone, leaving large seed pods in their wake, victorious fists clenched to salute such fleeting splendor. As I photographed them in the early morning sun, I was filled with gladness for the mother that sustains us all. Mother Earth.

I compiled my new flower photos into an album and posted them on Facebook. Everything was grand until yesterday when I noticed that someone on my friends list had posted my photo album onto her Facebook Wall. Without my permission! It irritated me. Especially because this same person had committed the same transgression only the week before with one of my other photo albums. She'd blithely helped herself to my family pictures and posted them on her Wall without as much as a by-your-leave. I wrote her this message:

I would appreciate it if you would kindly take my album "Life in Belgium" off your FB wall as soon as possible. My family's privacy is very important to me and I would rather that my photo albums be visible only to people on my friends list. I hope you understand.

To give her credit, she complied promptly. She explained she only wanted to share them with her sister and friends - none of whom I know, by the way. I enjoy sharing my photographs with my family and friends on Facebook. It's a great way for me to stay in touch because I live so far away from my tribe. However, I remain extremely cautious about sharing my personal details on the web, and I've gone to certain lengths to protect the identities of my loved ones on this blog.

Being a thoughtful person, I'd like to respect my offender's anonymity, so I'll call her Chlamydia Burana. (Take a bow, Chlamydia, dear. This may be your moment of fame.) Chlamydia Burana is close enough to her real name, and it accurately defines someone "with an ability to establish long-term associations with host cells." Gee, thanks, Wikipedia, that scares the shit out of me. An easily-transmitted infection, terrific. Some of my Facebook friends reading this may know who I'm talking about because Chlamydia has wormed her way into their friends lists as well. When I was new to Facebook last year, Chlamydia sent me a friend request. She claimed to be my mother's cousin and, fool that I was, I accepted. I had never met her in person, she lives a safe distance away in Vafancouver, and I had no intention of ever interacting with her. I did wonder at the time why, if she was as close to my mother as she claimed to be, Mama had never mentioned Chlamydia to us while she was alive. Dear Chlammy lost no time friending more family members, and was soon busy busy busy leaving her syrupy pawprints everywhere. Secretly I began to regard her as the Dolores Umbridge of Facebook. The first comment she ever left me, on a photo album titled "What's Cooking in Megatonlove's Kitchen" annoyed me, and I knew it was more than just her appalling punctuation:

hi M, Chlamydia here, 2nd cousin of your very beautiful mommy, Daisy. your aunt P is my contemporary and i am more than happy to have found her on B's album. also, it would be much appreciated if you could post a family photo with your mommy and dad, when you can. apparently, you inherited your mom's cooking prowess. i love all of your creations but, as a vegetarian,this is my favorite! your pup eats better than i do...home cooking!! thanks for your friendship and, like what i wrote to your sister-in-law, J, i am so blessed and humbled to have touched base with family members of my most adored cousin. take care and much love...

Not an auspicious start, but knowing how prickly and saccharine-intolerant I am on a good day, I tried to ignore it and dismissed her as Gushy. Give me Cranky, give me Snooty, give me Bossy or Smelly or any of the other 27 dwarves. Just. Don't. Give. Me. Gushy. Because I'll puke all over her. And Chlamydia was world class Gushy. Upper case SMARMY too.

And so Chlamydia simpered on:

Beautiful children you have.

Legs looks like Little Daisy...

Each time she left a comment, my Bullshit Meter would ricochet. Yesterday, when I saw that she had filched another of my photo albums and posted it on her Wall, after already having been cautioned once, it was a bit much. I sent her another message, more business-like this time:

Once again, Chlamydia, may I ask you to please not post any of my photos on your wall without asking me first? I really find this most intrusive and a complete disregard of my privacy. Although we might be related, I have never actually met you and I do not appreciate the liberties you are taking. You could at least have asked me first. It might be just pictures of my garden, but still. Kindly POST YOUR OWN STUFF on your wall. Thank you, etc.

To which she messaged back:

So sorry again, my niece...

My initial sigh of relief at her reply disintegrated into snorts of exasperation when I saw that my photos were still up on her wall. What the fuck, ya great galoot?! Pathetically, I checked her Wall every half hour. No change. By then, my knickers were dancing the proverbial twist.

This time, for variety, I brazenly wrote on her Wall:

Chlamydia, this is my THIRD and final request: will you PLEASE take MY photo album off your Wall? My photos are my property, and they are not yours to do with as you please. Surely this is not too much to ask? I would not dream of posting anyone's pictures on my wall without asking their permission first. Thanks.

Adrenalin provoked un derangement in me. I decided some extra spleen might not come amiss. Going for broke, I replied to her message:

I will not accept your apology until you take my photos off your wall. For god's sake, Chlamydia, I've had enough of your games. Do you ask permission from the other people whose stuff you put on your wall? Or do you think that because this is Facebook you can help yourself to whatever you want?

Silence. My blasted photos remained on her Wall. Was she suffering an attack of sudden illiteracy? Had her computer crashed? Or was she just being an utter fuckwit? All of the above? I gave it one last huzzah:

Chlamydia, I am now very angry that after asking you 3 times, you still haven't seen fit to remove my photos from your wall. What part of my request didn't you understand? I saw that you removed my comment, but my album is still there. And please don't patronize me by referring to me as "your niece" if you cannot respect my privacy on Facebook.

Nada. I had to admit defeat. I knew what my next step would have to be. Reader, I DELETED her.

Lessons learned, in no particular order:

1. I can't seem to count beyond 3 when I'm angry.
   
2. C'est la folie to ignore mon Bullshit Meter, parce que, mon dew, il est toujours spot-on.
   
3. Facebook's Privacy settings are a JOKE. There is no way to remove the Share option from my photos to stop others from posting them to their profile. And not only that, even after deleting Chlamydia from my friends list, my photos remain on her wall. Well, Facebook, as far as I'm concerned, you are now officially Fuckbook.
   
4. Some relatives can be downright shits. Bet y'all already knew that.
   
5. It feels great to let go of snakes masquerading as friends .
   

Before I go, I want to leave you with an imaginary message I wrote but will of course never send to her. Unless she tracks me down and reads it here:

Dear Chlamydia, what'll you do now that I've dumped you? I know I was one of the most colorful characters on your Friends List, and you will miss my saucy posts. How dreary your life will be without me. Never mind. Every cloud has a silver lining. Now that Bernard Madoff faces spending the rest of his life in prison, there may be a vacancy for you at Weasels Sans Frontieres.

Imelda Staunton as Professor Dolores Umbridge in "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix"

N.B. Megatonlove wishes to thank a certain lizard for helping her find the right name.

Where Angels tread (and hoe and mulch)

I have seen larger and grander, but THIS is the garden that's captured my heart for eternity. A springtime ramble through it brings me as close to heaven as I will ever get on earth.

It is the domain of a mother and daughter I shall call Charlie's Angels. They are the most incredible and inspiring gardeners I have ever met, and I have met many good ones in my time. Angel Senior, the mum, is like a second mum to me and an honorary granny to Legs and Noodle. Angel Senior possesses an encyclopaedic knowledge of all things botanical and is a gifted painter and writer, and a marvelous cook to boot. She taught me all about making jams and chutneys, one of my favorite kitchen pastimes. Angel Junior, the daughter, is a renowned sculptor who works in wood and alabaster when she's not busy in other incarnations as a singer, print-maker, photographer and belly-dancer. The Angels are the closest we have to family in our area and we love them to bits.

Their garden is enormous and utterly lovely in all seasons, yes, even in the dead of winter when our garden - and everyone else's - resembles horticultural Hades. Except for arduous he-man jobs like chopping fallen trees into firewood, they do ALL the garden work themselves. Unlike me, they never complain of backaches and have no fear of slugs. This is what their place looks like at this time of year.


I brought a friend to see their garden last week. When people enter for the first time, their typical reaction is usually one of delighted surprise and, often, speechlessness. In the orchard, we were engulfed by giddy-making clouds of apple blossom. There are several dozen fruit trees - mainly old apple varieties, as well as cherries and plums. In the autumn, several hundred kilos of windfall apples are collected and brought somewhere to be pressed into apple juice. The Angels' apple juice is the finest, most delicious apple juice I've ever tasted.

The Angels allow a farmer in the village to keep some of his sheep in their orchard. The 3 ewes and 8 lambs currently in residence get free grazing and reciprocate by keeping the grass down in the orchard. This beneficial agreement creates endless bucolic scenes like the one above. Two local bee-keepers, one of them a druid, also keep a number of beehives in their orchard. The bees feast on the flowers, pollinate them and produce beautiful honey that the bee-keepers offer the Angels in lieu of rent. Everyone benefits. In seeking to live with interdependence and harmony we only need look at Nature's example. The Angels taught me that.


At the rear of the garden is a splendid old wood with mature oak, yew, ash, hazelnut, acacia and chestnut trees which provide cover for an ever-changing magic carpet of springtime flowers. No sooner has the mantle of snowdrops gone over than bands of crocuses and scillas emerge to replace it, only to make way for a blaze of daffodils, then narcissus, and finally culminating in a spectacular blanket of bluebells. This picture does not do justice to just how delightful the wood is, even if the bluebells were coming to an end at the time I took it. Legs and Noodle love building forts and playing make-believe games in this wood. They stay there for hours on end, their shouts, laughter and occasional bickering weaving in and out of the leaves.


A formal hedge separates the orchard from the rest of the garden. A 6-foot tall hornbeam hedge borders this long walkway. Until a few years ago, Angel Senior used to trim this hedge herself, and the sight of this petite woman in her mid-70s brandishing a hedge-trimmer atop a tall ladder would give me the heebie jeebies. I have neither courage nor stamina to take on scary jobs like that. It's what separates hardcore gardeners like them from ordinary ones like myself.


The potager or vegetable garden is mostly Angel Junior's domain. Have you ever seen vegetables more artfully grown? Most people who grow vegetables grow them in rows. Practical, but boring. Angel Junior mixes vegetables and flowers together. Her potager is a suite of rooms separated by 'walls' of raspberry canes, and miniature pear and peach trees on cordons. In about a month's time, a canopy of grapevines and clematis will begin to provide summer shade for the lettuces.


An espaliered crab apple tree in full flower stands guard over Swiss chard, wood strawberries and leeks in raised beds bordered by campanulas and forget-me-nots.

Honesty's vibrant magenta flowers are offset by acid green ornamental grass. The Angels' boundless artistry is present in every picture-perfect corner of their garden. Even their compost heap is pretty.


Lime green euphorbias hug one of several huge walnut trees in the garden. In the autumn, I become the happy beneficiary of walnuts from this tree. They go into all my cakes and their flavor simply cannot be matched by supermarket walnuts.


A magnificent magnolia sheds its petals on the lawn. The Angels love our children and spoil them rotten sometimes. Legs and Noodle have enjoyed Easter egg hunts in this garden since they were little.


They must search high and low to find several kilos worth of Belgian chocolate Easter eggs each year. They have become extremely blasé about going Easter egg hunting anywhere else. This year, I unilaterally (and very unwisely) decided that the children, now 13 and 10, had grown too old for Easter egg hunts. Oh my God, the fallout that ensued! At breakfast on Easter Sunday I was shot stony looks by Legs and Noodle who informed me in the strongest possible terms that they expect to continue this annual springtime ritual on Angel ground until they leave home. As a matter of fact, they refer to the Angels' garden as "their garden," which is ironic because they do not speak of our garden at home - yes, the one Skunk and I toil in - with as much proprietarial affection.


A garden like this is heaven for all forms of wildlife. The Angels, passionate bird lovers, have nesting boxes on almost all their large trees. This sheltered wall hosts a village of bird houses, some of which are recycled from vintage wooden boxes of Earl Gray tea.

More posts on this garden will follow, but for now, I must get back to the weeds in ours.

P.S. I've only just found out that if you click on any of these photos, they will come up larger and in greater detail.

"... lo que la primavera hace con los cerezos."

As with cooking, I came late to gardening. It wasn't until Skunk and I bought our crumbling old farmhouse in the Brabant Walloon countryside that I first experienced the myriad joys and aches of gardening. Had I known what back-breaking work it would entail I might never have taken it up. But I did. And I'm hooked.

I want to say something about gardening. Keeping a few houseplants or a few pots of herbs on a window sill does not make one a gardener. Walking around in a sun hat while sipping a large G&T and ordering a gardener around to do one's bidding is definitely not gardening either, although my fear and loathing of slugs and snails, the pain shooting up my backside and my despair at the disgraceful state of my hands make me wish I could indulge in such moneyed pastimes. (Gardening for pussies is what I call that, so let's not go there.) Having neither the fortune nor the forbearance to deal with hired help, the only way I know how to garden is to get down and dirty myself. Picture me thus: I'm in a manky old sweatshirt and denim salopette, up to my eyebrows in compost, arms criss-crossed in scratches and nettle rash; grass stains on my knees. Twenty-year-old leather gloves held together by stitching and equally ancient wellies caked in mud and cracked at the seams. Twigs and spider webs in my hair complete the Mrs Batty mien. Let's face it, Country Living will never ask me to model for them.


My gardening year began with the appearance of brave little snowdrops (above) in late winter, an indication that spring was inexorably inching its way toward us. With temperatures in our area falling to a record minus 25 Celsius (or minus 13 Fahrenheit) this winter, we feared that the bitterly cold weather might kill off most of our plants. We lost quite a lot of them, including some real treasures. Many that didn't perish from the cold were heavily damaged and will take several seasons to recover. Some plants that didn't mind the cold at all were the Helleborus niger, also known as the Christmas rose (below). They put in an appearance in late winter and are just going to seed as I write.


Spirits soar when the first of our cherry trees bursts into blossom. This is when I know that winter has finally turned the corner and longer, warmer days lie ahead. Whenever I look at cherry trees in springtime, the part of my brain where gratitude lives does a little Pavlovian pirouette and performs a mental recitation of Pablo Neruda's immortal line, "Quiero hacer contigo lo que la primavera hace con los cerezos" (I want to do with you what spring does with cherry trees). Apple trees are in bloom now too. Spring, pregnant with scent and the promise of flowers and summer, is without a doubt my favorite season in the gardening year - at least, for as long as I can ignore those returning gastropods of doom.


Our property abuts a neighbor's abandoned, overgrown lot on one side and a cow pasture on the other. While I love not having next door neighbors because I can play music as loudly as I want without anyone but Legs and Noodle complaining, it does create a lot of extra work because the weeds from both sides migrate to ours. It does get very grrr-making especially in the summer when we seem to spend all of our time at weed control. Weeds always win. Of course.


This is the woodland, oh okay, the wild part of our garden with a happy Clematis montana growing out of a beautiful antique porcelain toilet (to protect the roots) that I inherited from a friend who found it abandoned in a potato field.


The enormous billy goat who lives across the street has been casting lascivious glances at my gorgeous deep pink aquilegias. If that wretched beast ever escapes and wreaks havoc on my plants I promise you he will end up as goat curry. A recipe for Jamaican goat curry, all our dub and reggae CDs and my scariest cleaver are already on stand-by.


One of my favorite climbers is the Wisteria. This W. floribunda 'Macrobotrys' in the back garden has magnificent racemes reaching over 3 feet long with deeply scented pea-like purple flowers. I've been dropping hints to Skunk to build a strong tall structure for it to climb. One certainty of gardening is that as we cross off one thing on our endless horticultural To-Do list, two more come to take its place.


The wisteria sinensis in our small front garden (below) is so abundant it's become quite the village showgirl. A Clematis montana 'Reubens' grows through it and when it's at its peak we often see cars screeching to a halt in front of our house. Windows roll down and people gawk and take pictures with mobile phone cameras. I've had to stop gardening in pajamas in the morning since this started to happen. I mean, what if I end up in the papers in my pajamas? Unfortunately, this wisteria took a terrible wallop this winter and we had to cut it back hard, leaving almost no flowers for this year. It'll grow back eventually, but for now I'm cheating and posting a photo of what it looked like last year.


Because I ache so much from gardening until almost 9 p.m. yesterday, I declared today a rest day. Never did get the hang of moderation, and anyway what would be the point? Spring doesn't have a pause button. As I stare at my fingernails in dismay, daydream about a massage I will not get and check the weather forecast for tomorrow, I find a certain amount of comfort and a great deal of truth in this Chinese proverb:

If you want to be happy for a day, drink.
If you want to be happy for a year, marry.
If you want to be happy for a lifetime, plant a garden.

On Angrrr

I was incandescent with fury the other day. A friend called to break a long-standing commitment with me, and as a consequence of her actions I'll be out of pocket by several hundred Euros that I don't have because I am essentially a poor person. Don't get me wrong - I am rich in many ways; money just ain't one of them.

Anger is a fascinating exercise. These days, I can actually listen to what my anger tells me I want. It requires me to get to a place of calm and quiet the noises in my head so I can listen to what I need to do to take care of myself instead of the other person. The other day it started with a slow burn, the getting-hot-under-the-collar bit when calm gave way to pique and swiftly morphed into indignation after my friend announced that her pillock of a husband insisted on tagging along to a week-long class she and I are taking in Ireland this June. This man likes to keep his wife on a very tight rein. Feminist snark that I am, I'm very allergic to neanderthals who behave as if they own their wives. Him coming means I lose my roommate and will then have to spend more on a single room which I can't afford. My carefully drawn budget was in tatters and all patience and compassion went pffft. I was furious at him for derailing our plans, and at her for failing to stand up to him and for not having the backbone to honor her commitment. Isn't anger amazing? In a heartbeat it transforms my reasonably sane and cheerful everyday self into a self-righteous, judgmental, napalm-breathing battleaxe. I can be pretty scary when I'm angry. How easy it is to wimp into coward mode and find fault with others rather than to face what's really going on inside.

If I catch myself early enough and if the irritant is minor, taking deep breaths often helps. When I remember to, I pray the Serenity Prayer while being mindful of my breathing, and that's even better. But sometimes that slow burn comes to a rolling boil before I realize what's hit me, and when it happens, people who know me wisely clear out of my way. Fast. Nowhere is it more evident that I am a double Leo with Aries rising than when I'm angry. I burn; sparks fly. I swear like a linguistically-gifted Captain Haddock, only I spew epithets far ruder than "Blistering barnacles." Let me not name them here.

I'm not a hurler or a breaker. I like things too much to throw them at people, and I hate it when I miss. And what would be the point of pounding a pillow when it's much more satisfying to pound the object of my anger? Except that I don't; not anymore. My brothers who are now in their 40s have a pet name for me. They call me Sidekick, a reference to our childhood in Bacolod when I had the temper of Yosemite Sam and the unerring aim of Bruce Lee whose films I adored as a child. When provoked, I'd aim for their nether parts. My ruthless right foot rarely missed its mark, hence the justly-deserved Sidekick honorific.


Being angry is healthy. Staying resentful is toxic. Years ago, when I was more volatile and less wise, anger was a more frequent visitor. It turned me into a good bread baker. Into the dough would metaphorically go the object of my ire, then I'd knead my angst away. By the time golden loaves emerged from the oven my anger had usually dissolved, and fragrant bread was my reward. It taught me that anger didn't have to be destructive, it could be made positive and creative. Now that I have less time for bread-baking, I've discovered other constructive ways of expressing my anger. Dancing, writing, weeding or pruning in the garden, honing my knife skills in the kitchen are all good circuit breakers. Murderous thoughts still race through my head even as I engage in these calming measures. Thoughts that I am powerless to stop and deeply grateful that I don't need to act upon. So when fury came calling the other day, here's what I did. I remembered to breathe, and I used a Jin Shin Jyutsu self-help technique that involves nothing more complex than gently holding all my fingers one by one. I poured myself a restorative (read: very large) malt whisky, neat, and danced like a dervish to "Happiness" by A. Skillz & Krafty Kuts with the volume cranked waaay up. I sharpened my kitchen knives and cooked a pork belly-chili pepper stir fry. By bedtime I found myself oddly tranquil again. I put it all in God's hands and slept like a baby.

Only when I consciously surrender to the arc of my anger - owning it, expressing it, and letting it go - can I find release from its tenacious grip and accept the gifts of a cleansing fire. Once the ashes have cooled, peace and sanity are reborn. I am restored to the flow.

The Serenity Prayer

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.


~ attributed to the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr

Painting by Youngheui Lee Lim

the leaping greenly spirits of trees

Photo by Liana Joyce

Sorry folks, but the garden has just gone ka-BLOOM with spring, and jobs that I was too lazy to attend to during the autumn and winter can no longer be ignored. So I will be spending more time outdoors pruning, staking plants, clearing flower beds of their winter debris, mulching, wrangling a recalcitrant willow igloo into shape and, hopefully, stealing a march on the weeds. At least until hay fever drives me back inside. Oh what fun my gluteus maximus is already having from my exertions which began in earnest last week. Naturally, I reward myself handsomely at the end of a hard day's graft with a very large whisky, or even two. Anyone who thinks I would subject myself to so much pain just for the pretty flowers is being hopelessly naive. Go munch on a Hallmark card.

I'm also taking advantage of Legs and Noodle still being on Easter break this week, thus making them eminently handy for slug and snail patrol duty. Obviously, they'd rather be indoors watching YouTube or listening to endless repeats of the daft but catchy "Walking on a Dream" by Empire of the Sun, so I shamelessly resort to my old maternal stand-by: bribery by chocolate. How can someone who enjoys gardening as much as me be so terrified of slugs and snails? Totally pathetic, I know. Living in rainy Belgium means we're doomed to having the little bastards around in vast numbers three seasons out of four, no matter what preventive measures we take. They give me the heebie-jeebies. I simply cannot bear to touch them, especially slugs, not even with a long stick, and I would sooner run a mile than crush them underneath my wellies. Eeeeeeeww. When I'm alone and no one's around to rescue me from these disgusting slimy creatures, I keep a salt shaker in my overalls pocket, all the better to send them to a painful demise by meltdown. I didn't mean to get side-tracked, but now y'all know my Achilles heel.

Till next post, I'll leave you with one of my favorite spring poems by e.e. cummings, he of the bolshy punctuation and the lower-case orthography. He was unconventional, funny, romantic and deeply spiritual, a poet after my own heart. I'm certain he never wrote poetry about slugs.


i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth
day of life and love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any-lifted from the no
of all nothing-human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)


ee cummings (1894-1962)

Brussels Street Art 1

Last spring a series of gigantic black-and-white portraits of African women burst out like tropical blooms all over downtown Brussels. Here are some I caught on camera.

I don't know who the photographer was but I loved the way the women's expressions brought light and laughter to some of the city's dingier corners.

This one was my favorite. It was at the end of one of the little side streets off the Grand'Place, the city's main square. I almost missed it. The look of joy on the woman's face was a blast of pure sunshine after I had been walking around for hours in the rain and cold.

What a difference a smile makes.

Heroes: Legs takes a giant step.

"I got to where I am because of education."
~ Michelle Obama, speaking to students at the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson School in London last Thursday

Legs and Noodle are in new schools this school year. Skunk and I decided to move them to Flemish schools from the French schools they've attended all their young lives. A bit of background on the tiny but complex country we live in: Belgium has three official languages - Dutch, French, and German. An estimated 59% of the Belgian population speaks Dutch, and French is spoken by 40%. There is a small German-speaking community in the east of the country. We live in the French-speaking part of Belgium although if we drive 20 minutes north we're in Flanders. Flemish is both the colloquial term given to the Dutch spoken in Belgium, and to the inhabitants of Flanders. If this sounds confusing, well, that's Belgium for you.

It was convenient to send the children to the local French-speaking school. They started at the École Communale, a small but cheery primary school a 3 minute trundle from our front door. Eventually, we transferred Noodle to another school two villages away because it was piloting a Dutch immersion program. French native speakers would be taught most of their lessons in Dutch, with the aim of getting immersion students perfectly bilingual in both French and Dutch by the time they were 12 years old. There was skepticism at first, and parents like us who offered up our children as guinea pigs to this experimental program knew we were taking a risk. True, we could have bilingual children by age 12 - something nice to brag about to parents with monolingual kids. But things could backfire, and instead of speaking French and Dutch fluently, there was the possibility that the students would end up confused and speak both languages badly. To complicate matters further, we speak English at home, making English the children's mother tongue. Skunk and I speak passable everyday French. Translated, passable means that we speak it with execrable foreign accents, misconjugate our verbs, gender-bend our nouns, and are a little too free with the use of tu instead of vous. In more concrete terms, I speak good enough French to jaw down the price of a Le Creuset cocotte at a flea market or have a blazing row with the shackass who swiped my parking space in front of the post office, but I will never be able to discuss Sartre eloquently at a dinner party. Not that we go to those types of dinner parties anyway, thank god.

Over the last 3 years we had grown increasingly disillusioned with the Francophone school system's lack of funding and long-term vision. Schools were getting over-crowded, teachers were badly paid, over-worked and demotivated, academic standards were sinking, school equipment was falling apart and not being replaced. After Legs started high school at the French-speaking Athénée in the nearest town, she complained that her teachers were often absent and student discipline was a problem. Most of her classmates were more interested in mobile phones, reality TV and les baskets Converse. She wasn't learning anything. We investigated the possibility of sending her to Flemish schools which are much better funded and reputed to have some of the best academic standards in the world. We found Legs a place at an excellent Flemish high school 25 minutes away, and decided to move Noodle to a primary school in the same town. When the new schoolyear began last September we took deep breaths and prayed hard. Settling in to a new school was relatively painless for Noodle. After 5 years in Dutch immersion learning, his Dutch was almost as good as that of his new classmates who spoke it at home. However, the change of schools has been a grueling transition for Legs, whose Dutch was rudimentary at best.

Skunk and I repeatedly questioned the wisdom of our decision to throw an English mother-tongue, French-educated 13 year old in the deep end at what's turned out to be one of the most demanding high schools in Flanders. It seemed cruel doing it, even though we felt it was the right thing to do for Legs' education. It's been painful watching her struggle with subjects like History, Biology, Technology and Algebra in a language she could barely speak. We knew that all the parental love in the world coupled with her burning desire to succeed did not necessarily guarantee that Legs would make it. We grew frustrated with ourselves because we could scarcely understand the frequent communiqués the new schools sent home. We speak almost no Dutch so there was no question of helping her with her schoolwork. It would have been the blind leading the blind.

It was clear to the headmaster and all her teachers from the start that Legs would be a special case. They welcomed her warmly but said she would have to work very hard. Her new classmates were friendly and helpful, although socially there was the language barrier to hurdle as well. Her first trimester grades were quite poor, as expected. Her teachers were impressed by how hard she was working and gave her the help and encouragement she needed. There was extra Dutch tutoring after school. She began to make friends. She enjoyed gym, especially swimming, which she's good at. She rejoiced in the fact that she was ahead of the others in French and English. In all her other subjects, she scraped bottom. Though she was tired everyday after school, she did her homework diligently and without complaint. She would study for exams a month in advance. She made many sacrifices to help her focus on school: her Nintendo was put away until the school holidays; computer time, unless required for homework, was limited to a couple of hours on weekends only; Saturday afternoon activities in Brussels were put off; her iPod gathered dust.

Every language a child learns brings a different way of looking at the world. Week after week, we've watched with astonishment and delight as Legs' grasp of a new language has grown. The awkward phrases she mumbled six months ago have been replaced by the nimble, confident patter she keeps up with friends and teachers today.

On Friday evening we attended a parent-teacher meeting to discuss her second trimester progress. Both kids left in the afternoon for a competition weekend in the Ardennes with their Flemish swim team. Then it's Easter break for the next 2 weeks. Legs had not seen her latest report card but warned me, "Mama, please don't be upset if my grades are still bad. I really did my best." With that in mind, we weren't expecting much when we sat before her teachers. So we were speechless with shock when we saw her latest grades, which have improved tremendously. Her teachers were full of praise, "We've not met many youngsters like your daughter, she's a real joy to teach!" Her grade point average is now just a few notches below the class average, and if she can keep up her momentum she will have caught up with everyone else by the time school ends in June. Legs has surpassed everyone's expectations. Sitting there listening to all this, I fought back tears of pride and relief. Skunk and I drove home in a daze. I sent a text message to her swim coach to give her the good news right away.

I, perfectionist but slacker extraordinaire, am totally blown away by my girl's pluck and determination. I feel awful for yelling at her on the occasions she was too tired to remember to wash the dog's bowl, bring her dirty laundry downstairs or keep her desk tidy. When I look at the Herculean task she's tackled so bravely I know I should have cut her more slack at home. I could have, but I haven't always remembered to, or wanted to. Had it been me in her place I doubt I would have fared half as well. Humility is a classroom I will have to keep revisiting in earth school.

There's a Zen saying that goes, "When the student is ready, the teacher will appear." Legs, your student is here.

Photos of Legs by Liana Joyce

Rock & Reel

The word 'roadkill' accurately describes how I felt yesterday morning after spending the previous night with a demented crush of teenage banshees at a Fall Out Boy concert in Brussels. I was so tired I never even got up to my grumpy morning default setting. It couldn't be the one beer I had, decorous by my standards. And it wasn't that the music was concert loud, because I love that kind of loud. No, it was the non-stop pandemonium in the audience that wiped me out. Teenage hormones in full spate and at ear-splitting decibels will sap the juice out of anyone, even a life-long party animal and adrenalin junkie like myself.


As concerts go, it was a great evening; Fall Out Boy are a terrific band with a big brash sound. What made it special for me was the fact that it was Noodle's first ever rock concert. Being present at this rite of passage was a privilege for his music-mad mama. The look of utter delight on my son's face when FOB hurled themselves into their first song will stay with me forever. He was easily the smallest person there and glad to have us by his side. He'll feel differently in a few years, so we're grateful for today's small mercies.

A disapproving friend wanted to know why I would even take a 10 year old to a rock concert on a school night. (Legs stayed home studying for exams.) Not knowing how to explain myself I simply replied, "Because I like to have fun with my son." But it got me thinking about why Skunk and I do it. We've been taking Legs and Noodle to concerts for about 3 years now. The fun element is crucial, yet there's more. On the practical side, teaching the kids basic street smarts is part of our brief as parents. Noodle and Legs aren't too young to learn about concert protocol, especially how to be safe and enjoy themselves at public events. Stay away from drunks and people who are high or aggressive, we caution them. Know where all the exits are. Don't accept drinks from strangers, I sometimes nag. If the volume's too loud, ask for free ear plugs at the bar. Stay close to the security dudes if the mosh pit vibe gets uncomfortable, et cetera. Luckily, in the 20-odd years we've been going to the Ancienne Belgique, we've never had a spot of bother. It's a mid-sized venue, clean, well-policed and generally attracts a good-natured crowd. Still, better safe than sorry.

But back to the real reason why we take our children to concerts some people deem inappropriate for their age. A singular magic unfolds when good music is performed live. Live music creates fellowship in a way that bottled music can't. Aging rock chick that I am, I have much more in common with the dread-locked heavy or the wispy redhead with multiple piercings gyrating next to me than any of us can ever imagine. Barriers fall, smiles are traded. Kind strangers sometimes turn into new friends. Important discoveries are made about ourselves and what makes our cells hum with joy. We emerge, temporarily deaf but years younger. The happy buzz lasts for days, the memories a lifetime.

Besides, the thought of my children listening to dreck by the likes of Britney Spears or James Blunt is more than I can bear. Give me roadkill mornings any day.



Fall Out Boy performing "Thanks for the Memories" at their Brussels concert, the last gig on their European tour. The footage is shaky in parts due to jostling by deranged teens, but audio is okay. (Length 1:43)