Friday, April 27, 2012

Celebrating the city


I took the boys with me to what is spoken of in hallowed terms as The Jumping Castle Garage. I did this because The Jumping Castle Garage has a car wash. The last traces of our holiday were soaped and sprayed into oblivion and industrially sucked out of the upholstery. Cam and Scott and a handful of other carwash kids romped and bounced and collapsed ecstatically against the grubby green plastic of their inflated fortress. I tried not to think about the diversity of germs to which they were being exposed.

That’s when it struck me: This is what it is, to do life in the city. There are germs. And there are jumping castles.

Small-town, peaceful places surrounded by mountains or farmlands or beaches or bushveld always get me wondering if we shouldn’t chuck it all up and do life smaller and quieter and sans city stress. After all, we have one shot at bringing up kids. One shot at giving them a childhood. The foundations of whatever else they build in their futures will be drilled into the bedrock of that childhood. So, should that childhood be here?

I guess every decision involves a sacrifice.

Choosing to bring up our boys in a city means we’re sacrificing the natural beauty and simplicity of another existence. But if we chose that existence we’d be sacrificing all that a city upbringing has to offer. And if it’s true that God is at work everywhere, then it’s true that his glory is on display in both milking sheds and malls. We can make much of him in a deserted sweeping sea view and we can make much of him in a luminous city skyline.

So tonight (there’s a dog barking somewhere and probably an ADT car doing its slow circuit and I can hear distant traffic above the immediate silence of our streetlamps and windows are lit and content and people who don’t have toddlers are out doing Friday-night things) I’m celebrating quiet parks with old-school jungle gyms secreted away in leafy suburbs. And the thrill of seeing diggers and dumpers and great heaps of red earth magically turned into buildings behind chevron tape. And green gardens and museums and milkshakes and pavements and play dates. These are things my boys love about this city. We’re at peace here despite traffic and electric fencing and splendid pollution sunsets.

And of course it runs much deeper than a list of entertaining things to do, or other pleasing amenities like superb schools and decent doctors. The magnetic effect of the city is the lives with which ours are intricately connected. The city phenomenon – millions of human beings living wall to wall on a particular patch of the planet – presents astonishing – profoundly gratifying – opportunities to invest in peoples’ hearts.


You are the light of the world—like a city on a hilltop that cannot be hidden. No one lights a lamp and then puts it under a basket. Instead, a lamp is placed on a stand, where it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your good deeds shine out for all to see, so that everyone will praise your heavenly Father. – Matthew 5:14-16

A spontaneous Bible story session with Maria

A (freezing cold) picnic in Borzoi Park




Other cool memories from the past week or so:

Scotty threw his first proper tantrum. He lay on the floor. Kicked and turned red and everything.

He also carried Lawrence James’ The Rise and Fall of the British Empire into the playroom. Sat down, paged through it reflectively. And made horsey trotting noises every time he glanced at the cover.

I was lecturing Cam about something. He obviously felt he had had enough. So he splayed his right hand on my stomach then drew his fingers together to a point. Repeatedly. Until I stopped. Yip. He was ‘closing’ me like an iPad app. 

Friday, April 20, 2012

Poems about paradise (almost)


We had an awesome time away. Easter, three birthdays, time to relax and reflect and plan and play. (And write poetry.)

Here's a handful of random-ish poems concretizing a handful of random-ish holiday moments.


A swing in the Karoo

Distant 
Sheep graze
And mountains rim 
My spiraling rope panorama
Dizzying me beneath autumn branches 
In this rough-slatted safety of journey relief:
We're halfway there and boys' laughter is whipped 
Insouciant with yellow leaves across an icy dusk garden


Cam, Scott, a Futon and one pillow: a haiku

Two deeply snoozing
Snug bodies breathing warm and
Dreaming Easter eggs


So call me a freak

At the end of adventure days drenched in doing there's
God's glory in simple cathartic pleasures like
Hot baths run sandy floors swept towels
Hung toys tidied sleepy teeth
Brushed breakfast table
Laid lights out -

And waves crashing in the dark


(Sometimes our family downtime culminates in ridiculous fantastical stories and creatures made up on the spot amidst riotous giggling and roughing and tumbling...)

Nonsense and Lagoons

A magical land of swamp and sand
And shallow pools and fish
Is hours of splashing and mystery and fun
And all that little ones wish.

It's there we discovered the Vuvu -
A creature who only eats cheese
And tries to avoid the Moozy Booter -
Who may be covered in fleas...


(We gave Cam a kite for his birthday. It was a winner.)

Now he's four

Berg winds blanket the valley in a slow sultry
Peace. Fishermen and sunset hand-holders
Melt into the pink salty haze of hot twilight

A birthday kite dazzles
Rainbow-happy above the waves
Four-year-old fist fiercely clutching strings
Thrilled and proud and big-boy free


Cam's birthday - 7th April. He had such a happy day!     





Celebrating Easter and Murray's birthday (8th) and mine (9th) at Pienaarsbaken















 Then on to the Valley...



























Sing out your thanks to the Lord... - Psalm 147:7