This entitles the bearer...

Passports are funny things. Just little books of paper and stamps. Yet for some odd reason they represent part of our very being, embody our nationality, our character and in some way define us. They give us somewhere to belong, a sense of pride, even a homecoming.

When I painstakingly completed the forms to renew my passport and that of my son, I did it with the complete certainty that we belonged and it would merely be a bureaucratic inanity to give us new ones. I was wrong.

First of all, the forms themselves are about as long as War and Peace, only even less accessible. I tracked down a person allowed to ratify my photographs, one I actually knew and that was a stroke of dumb luck. Then I set off to the nearest Postnet and couriered the whole lot to the Embassy in Pretoria.

Boy, was I in for a shock.

“I’m sorry, but there is a discrepancy.”

“A what?”

“Well... it appears you shouldn’t have been granted a passport in the first place.”

“Hang on. I’ve had it for 20 odd years. I’ve renewed numerous times. Why now?”

“Ah well, we pick up these things all the time. Forty, fifty years on.”

About now me and my cool, calm, collected demeanour parted ways. I felt a bit like I was being accused of obtaining a passport through nefarious means, although how I would have accomplished that at the age of 9 was quite beyond me. 

I felt absurdly hurt and abandoned. Combined with my local Home Affairs losing my son’s foreign birth application, one phone call made him a stateless entity.

By the time I calmed down a bit and managed to sift through the detritus of the internet to find a direct line back to the embassy I was stricken, confused and faced with the implication that we didn't belong.

I found a care call line that would have cost me the better part of the month’s salary for each minute I spoke, but through trial and error managed to find someone, who managed to find someone I could talk to. 

He was very British, very polite and terribly apologetic. 

Apparently my file said that I did not react well to the news. No, I didn’t. I felt like Wile E Coyote must have whenever he got hit with a falling anvil.

I was told to find a registration certificate that I would have been issued back in the mid-eighties. There was a sad tone to his voice, a sort of pitying ring that said he didn’t think I had one of these treasured pieces of paper. Of course, there was also the repeated use of the word “if" that eroded my confidence into a little heap of dust.

Thank the Lord my mother is a pack horse and my father more organised than I. Tucked away in an old steel box was this tenuous link to my citizenship. To say I fell on it glee would not understate my reaction.

The embassy was astonished, but ludicrously happy for me. They even let me scan it in and email it. 

Accompanying it was an affidavit explaining that my passport had suffered some water damage. Basically I was not about to sign an affidavit saying I stupid enough to stick it in the washing machine.

I was warned that the passports would take four weeks, but everyone was extremely nice to me. I felt that I had misjudged them, and so I had. 

For precisely 8 days later a young man in a DHL truck pulled up at the gate and handed over our shiny new passports. I am terrified to let them out of my sight.

I never knew this one thing could unsettle me so much or leave feeling quite so bereft. To belong to a country again feels good, really really good.

And next month we will be jetting off for two weeks in the English countryside.

So, British Consulate Pretoria thank you for your patience and courtesy in dealing with an irate and tearful woman, but most of all thank you for coming through with shining colours in my hour of need.

I can’t give you knighthoods, but you totally deserve them.

PS: I have put certified copies of that registration certificate in every safe south of the Equator.

Life and the Day Spa

Joie de vivre. Sometimes the stress and strain of everyday living can erode that joy to live until you feel like the walking dead. I can’t really speak for you, but that’s how I felt this afternoon.

Around me all day chaos and drama erupted like Mount Etna with indigestion. The CEO went on the rampage, dishing our warning letters like poisoned Smarties. One poor chap got two in the space of about 3 hours. A designer left in tears after a supplier yelled at her for non-payment, not that she could have anything about it. 

The creative director, a Buddhist, tried to inject some rationale Zen into the proceeding, but that didn’t last. His Buddhist principles got chucked out the fourth floor window as I heard him yelling, “Are you out of your ever loving mind!” at the CEO.  

Basically, it was the day from the deep depths of a fiery hell.

By the time I escaped, I had a raging migraine and a bone deep exhaustion at facing the traffic on the way home.

And then... dum... dum... DUM!

At the intersection ahead of me appeared a sign. It was like a light on a dark night illuminating the path. It read “Life Day Spa. Just opened.”

I would be very inconsiderate to have ignored such a blatantly god given sign. You can’t ask for more overt messaging in a time of need. Never one to disobey my instincts and with the desperation only working in advertising can bring, I drove right in and pleaded for a massage.

I was soon enrobed in a soft warm dressing gown and slippers, sipping a cold glass of ice tea and being treated gently, like you might treat someone on the verge of a nervous breakdown. It was very soothing.

Lerato ushered me into the Room of Tranquillity and set about removing me from all earthly matters with an Indian Head Massage. 30 minutes later I felt like I had died and gone to heaven. My headache was a faint memory and I think she managed to get rid of knots in my neck I’ve carried for the last decade.

Indian Head Massages started out in India, imagine that? Seriously, women used to do it on each other to encourage their hair to grow. Narendra Metha brought to the West and extolled its virtues based on Ayurvedic techniques working on the upper back, shoulders, neck, scalp and face. It can help alleviate the symptoms of stress, help you lose weight (not sure about this one), migraines, sinus pain and hair loss! Physically it helps with lymphatic drainage, blood circulation and muscle tension. Psychologically it helps balance the upper three chakras using acupressure points or marmas.

All of which is all very well, but I’ve had some awful Indian Head Massages in the past. Whatever Lerato did in between rubbing heated oil over my back and releasing eon’s worth of tension it was nothing but pure magic. I was able to slip into that beautiful somnambulant state of sheer bliss.

I didn’t have to make small talk and most importantly I didn’t have to listen to bloody Enya. I hate Enya. I have walked out of spas that played Enya. She is not remotely relaxing for me, she is irredeemably annoying, like Dido.

I’ve been to the Life Day Spa in Fourways and I have to say Rosebank is nicer. It is warmer for one thing and more intimate. They also have an amazing floatation pool, which I plan to try out post haste. Apparently, 30 minutes in that and you feel like you’ve slept for 4 hours. Perhaps I should install one in my home. If you can’t beat insomnia you can at least work around it.  

By the time I got into my car I felt renewed, revived and ready to face tomorrow’s journey into our nation’s capital. I can’t quite communicate the dread I was carrying for this task, which involves a complicated train journey and hike through city streets wide enough to accommodate two ox wagons. Simply put, I distrust meetings at any place that start with “The Department of...”

But right now, I feel like a limp noodle, I smell like a garden of roses and I plan to sleep like the dead. I deal with tomorrow, tomorrow.

Say Cheese

On 20 February 2006 the world changed forever. 

Maybe you didn’t notice, but the world as I knew it shifted slightly to the right.

Alexandra Isabella was born at 06:50 and promptly altered the state of the universe to suit herself.

Today is her sixth birthday and like most mothers, I suffer from party panic. 

You may scoff, but I have been to parties where the mother has broken down into hot tears of hysteria because the kids didn’t want to pin the tail on the donkey.

I have spent sleepless nights baking elaborate birthday cakes in the shape of the Sword of Omens and a robot. I have iced 100 small pink cupcakes and stuffed party packs full of toys and candy from China Mall.

Each year there is a not-so-subtle parental competition – one which usually ends with you substantially poorer. You can easily end up spending as much on a birthday party than you did on your own wedding – only Daddy doesn’t pick up this bill.

I have been to a party where one of South Africa’s premier soccer teams played ball with a bunch of 7 year olds. Former State President Nelson Mandela made an appearance at one.

I don’t bother even trying. I sent the boys to bootcamp to wallow in the mud and be yelled at by ex-Navy Seals. They go hone happy, exhausted and covered in mud. Most the time they are happy with a water pistol and a jumping castle.

Girls are harder.

This year as I was lamenting the impending day with gloom, the power of social networking led me to a review by Shelli Nurcombe-Thorne who knows more about Johannesburg than anyone I have ever met.

Largely because she writes a Joburg blog about it. She had just reviewed a kids’ photo studio and promptly sent me the details of Nina Say Cheese.    

Lexi and her best friend were duly collected on Saturday afternoon and chauffeur driven (by me) to the studio of Nina Say Cheese in Fourways.

Vanessa Lewis is a professional food photographer, but was inspired to start a children’s studio after the birth of her daughter, Nina. 

She offers four magical sets, an aeroplane hanger, a circus, a forest and a tea party. 

She also provides delicious cookies and macaroons from a real pastry-chef.

The girls put on identical pink ruffled skirts, pretty tops and sparkly shoes. Suddenly these two scruffy little tomboys blossomed into the most beautiful and ladylike little girls. They posed, they played and they laughed and laughed and laughed.

I haven’t got the pictures yet, but I know they will be beautiful.

So all-in-all it was a good way to celebrate without having to entertain 25 small girls and their 50 associated parents.

Social networking again helped me out on the birthday present front. Having expressed interest in a Barbie Bride at a friend’s house, her mom called to tell me about the best place to buy Barbie clothing.

Hint: It is not Toys R Us.

The Rosebank Market on a Sunday is home to a remarkable stall. A elderly man painstakingly designs and makes exquisite furniture for baby dolls and Barbie Dolls. His wife equally painstakingly designs and sews tiny clothes, sleeping bags, duvets and other necessities for small girls and their dolls.

For R300 I bought a wardrobe and 6 perfectly made little outfits, including a wedding dress. Unlike the cheap and nasty Toys R Us clothes, they don’t fall apart as soon as Barbie is dressed up and they cost a damn sight less.

I highly recommend him to every mother of a small child who balks at the idea of buying yet another Barbie. Lexi unwrapped her gifts this morning in total rapture.

 

I also got out of baking a million cupcakes by strolling into Mother Hubbard’s in the mall and purchasing for R70 a Happy Birthday cake for her school birthday ring. 

Far less stressful.

This afternoon I will pick up little karate kid and take her out for ice-cream with sprinkles on.

Heaven.

And when we get home Lexi can model the pretty clothes purchased on her shopping experience with my  mom – from Zara no less!

Suffer the Little Children

And God said, “Suffer the little children to come unto me.” 

Somehow, I am not convinced He was referring to mine. 

My family’s forays into religious instruction have met with disaster. It is not surprising when one set of grandparents are Mormon, the other Anglican, your Dad is an atheist and your mother a sort of a Pagan.

Let me place this perspective. It was Christmas Eve, the tree was shining, the gifts were wrapped and my sons gathered around their father’s knee.

“Boys,” he said, “Your little sister still believes in Santa, so don’t ruin it for her. Okay?”

Ah, how sweet, or it would have been, if I hadn’t had a conversation a few nights later with the little sister concerned.

“Mummy, Daddy has told me the facts. There is no God.” stated my tiny daughter.

“How. Could. You?” I roared at my spouse.

“Hmm? How could I what?” he asked in mild bemusement.

“Santa Claus!” I spluttered, “The Truth!”

At his point he wisely decided to shut up and wait for the tsunami to pass.

“How is it okay for her to believe in Santa, but not in God?”

Small boy aged 7 came home perturbed by our eating habits.

“Mom. All animals are God’s creatures, so we can’t eat meat anymore.”

“Sure thing,” I said, “But then you have to eat vegetables.”

“Vegetables!”

“Yup.”

“Okay, I’ll talk to Father Ian. I am sure God will make an exception.”

It is not as though I haven’t tried to engage my children in religious thought. I took them all off to the family service at my mother’s church. It did not go well.

I should have known from the start, when after two weeks of readings from the Gospel of St Luke, my son James hooked up with another James and the two of them staged a revolt.

The priest stood and droned, “And the reading today is from the gospel of St Luke.”

The ritual silence was broken, “No!” said the two James’s standing up on the pews. “You read from Luke last week and the week before. This week, you read from James.”

In the face of their combined fury he was floored. He read from James. 

Then we had to face communion. We knelt in supplication. The priest made his solemn rounds of “The body of Christ. The blood of Christ.” And then he got to me. My son watched intently and then burst out in horror, “No, Mum! You’re not going to drink the blood of dead guy are you? That’s disgusting!”

My mother is still furious that I performed what she refers to as a cop-out and I like to think of a quick two-step to the right. I delegated responsibility for explaining the sacraments to the priest. After all I wasn’t sure if he subscribed to transubstantiation. Then I bowed my head and wept in laughter.

Since my son pointed out the rather vampiric quality of the communion ceremony to me I’ve not felt the same about it. Anyway my mother then suggested we take a break from church.

It must be genetic, because she was almost ousted from a prayer group for daring to challenge the origins of Easter – the pagan Goddess Eostre and the bunny and egg as symbols of fertility did not go down well with the church group. Funny that.

Who drank all my breast milk?

“You will feed an increased need for urination,” said the doctor. 

His cool medical jargon did not convey the reality of a pregnant woman’s need to pee every ten minutes. In a 45-minute commute to work I’d have to pull into every petrol station to use the bathroom. I developed loo radar. By month 8 I could do the midnight loo runs like a somnambulant zombie. 

Which brings me to maternity clothes. If you have the financial wherewithal to buy a new wardrobe from Marion & Lindie for what equates to 6 months of your life, go ahead. I didn’t, and I felt deep antipathy for not being able to wear the clothes I had. I had to give up when in the middle of a deeply depressing play about homeless people in London, my leather pants gave up the battle and PING my button shot across the audience to a domino effect of “Ow!”, “Ow!”, “Ow!” 

“What was that?” asked the father of the baby. 

“That,” I said in a fit of giggles, “Was my button.” 

He erupted into that male sort of deep booming laughter that was completely inappropriate for the scene enacted on the stage. 

Now, women have been breastfeeding since the year dot. It’s 100% earth mother natural. 

How hard could it be? Harder than you think. I didn’t have a clue, neither did my babe in arms. So, don’t scoff at earth mother remedies. I tried ice-packs, gels and other over-priced solutions to provide relief from painful swollen boobs. 

The answer is cabbage. Great big cabbage leaves. Stick them in the fridge, get the Dad to cut out nipple holes in the middle and slap them on.

Yes, you will smell like cooking cabbage. 

Yes, you will never eat cabbage again. 

But, I’ll tell you what it works like a dream. 

The things no one tells you. 

Like the fact that the pheromone released during sex is the same as the one released during feeding time. What this means is that when a few weeks have past and you’ve forgiven your husband for the act of birth and are ready to get jiggy with it, each time you start the baby will cry and your boobs will erupt like Niagara Falls. 

Basically, if you want a romantic night in Club Duvet, get Granny to babysit. 

For some reason men do not take kindly to these sorts of interruptions. 

Then there is going back to reality. We would all like to stay home and be fulltime moms, but the reality is that most of us work. Armed with my breast pump I returned to fulltime work after 4 months of self-doubt and a deep fear my job would be gone when I got back. 

The interior designers had equipped every office with a glass wall so I had to take refuge in the printer room for privacy. I would wedge myself into the space between the printer and the wall, get set up and suddenly everyone and his auntie needed to photocopy something. 

After each session I’d empty the milk into a bottle clearly marked, “Breast milk. Do not drink” and placed it in the fridge. One day I arrived to discover half of it was gone. 

I strode into the largely male open plan workspace and shouted loudly, “Who drank all my breast milk?” 

It seemed every one of my colleagues spontaneously ejected their mouthfuls of coffee. 

It was a sort of divine karmic moment.

Close to home

 My husband was appalled at the opening, but hey, I got published!