Tag: afternoons

Be present.

It is nearly three months since we moved to a new house. We run away from the city into the “countryside“ and I say it like this because it is a town surrounded by countryside with no airports ambulance corridors police cars wailing away screaming neighbours or the usual weekend drunks. So, it is countryside!

Although I feel somehow I may miss our locals – the guy who sang so loud you could hear him 50 yards away, my neighbour with his dog and his sick uncle, the security guy at the supermarket who knows my son since he was born (or even earlier than that!) the guys at the gates of the underground station…and that’s the beginning of a long list which was forged over six years.

I got to know the inhabitants of the gardens, saw many cubs become foxes how the parrots took over the trees and how the squirrels grew countless families and how each generation managed to munch through the kitchen window frame unsuccessfully and how my cats use to chase them when not laying down enjoying the sun on the window sills. I repaired and restored the patio and the front flowerbed to their former glory and tendered to the roses whom after a year of intensive care greeted me with beautifully full scented roses summer after summer.

I planted oaks from kernels, grew many holly trees and planted countless bluebells and I even have a yew tree which I grew from seed – which by the way is sitting in the patio on the new house.

That small flat was the silent witness of many sleepless nights when my son was born and the last resting place of one of my cats who finished her days in a cosmopolitan city just to follow her super cosmopolitan style.

Yes: the flat was small; half – if not all – of my stuff was on a storage space which cost me a small fortune every month not to mention how things were stacked up in the kitchen or how going outside to the patio was more of an expedition than a simple “open the door and go” like it is now, which in turn means endless hours outside enjoying the good weather and the liberty to say “let’s have dinner outside” with everything within 10 steps away from the kitchen.

This new house is big and spacious. It does have a patio with easy access and all the bedrooms are big and airy. The kitchen is simply BIG and it is so big there is a small table there where we had our meals every day until I managed to compose the dining room – that is, clear it from boxes and remnants from the move. We have again plants inside the house – almost one in every room! – and everything seems to be in place, seamless.

Today, as I am cleaning my computer archives – forced by the desperate need to find a document which remains elusive – I found many videos made in the old flat, and it felt like when you find a treasure because those memories are there somewhere in my brain but seeing them today was like “wow! Look at that” kind of thing.

The funny thing is that my son saw a frame of one video made in the old house. And he said “Home! Look, mummy, home!” and I did explain to him that now this was our new house and that was our old house. He kept saying that there was “home”. After put my son to bed and whilst doing the tidying up and leaving everything ready for the morning – whilst still cleaning my computer of course – I could not stop thinking on my little one thoughts and feelings about “home” mainly expressed by his facial expressions and his eyes together with words who only he understood.

And left me wondering if although we are well settled in this new house and everything is working “like clockwork” if we are really present in this house and we really took ownership of it – despite the fact that it is rented – as we did with the flat. Perhaps he feels the flat was home because he was born in it. Perhaps because we were living there for two years prior to his arrival we made that flat ours.

The flat – as this house – was technically a transitional place, where we would stay until we settled with our wandering lifestyle (travelling suitcases used to live outside the wardrobe and close to the door combined with very demanding jobs) so we did not consciously adopt the flat as ours. Then life happened and our son came along and of course we made the flat home – but always with that back thought that now more than ever we must settle somewhere we could call ours.

The question is – now that I re read the paragraph above – did we really made the flat home or did our son made the flat home? As soon as he started to crawl and leave a trail of toys, putting toys amongst books and arranging the kitchen cupboards to his liking – the ones at his level – he made the flat a home on his own particular way. And inevitably, we followed.

And yes, we were crammed…. but we made a home together as a family. Maybe it is time this time to give it a go, forget the fact that we may not be here next year and be more present, and enjoy every day and every inch of this new house as if it was always ours and make it home, pour the heart and *do* live in it.

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A free lesson

It is nearly a month that I arrived home and there is this episode that is still very vivid on my mind and I think it will take years to shift, because it was like a tragic comedy of parenthood.

I was at the playground in a sunny afternoon I would say a perfect afternoon not too hot, not too windy, watching my little one explore his surroundings and wondering what was he thinking or imagining in that head of his.

As my son approached me with a stick in one hand and some leaves in the other with his sandals covered in mud, a football came straight our way. It did not touch me or my son but it did scare us because it was unexpected. My son was delighted with this sudden apparition of a ball and as you can imagine I looked immediately for the owner.

Yes, you imagined well, the owner was a young boy of about 8 or 9 years old, in a sleeveless t-shirt, shorts and trainers.

– “I’m sorry” he muttered

-“No worries “I replied.

The boy noticed my son’s interest on the ball, so he kicked the ball towards him, a bit rough so I explained to the boy to do so a bit more gently so my son could play without getting hurt. So he did, and for 5 minutes both of them were enjoying the play. But the sleeveless t-shirt boy soon got bored of it and in a very straight forward way he went to kick his ball away from my little one.

My son saw himself without the ball and without someone to play with and the disappointment in his face was such it broke my heart.  Quite promptly his football came out of the bag underneath the pushchair and I started to play with him and peace was restored until the next twig or leave would distract him (as it normally happens).

Whilst my son was running around I was observing this young boy – the sleeveless t-shirt one – who was somehow trying to play by himself but obviously was quite bored and in complete truth he did not know what to do with himself.

He was kicking the football up, to the sides, towards the bushes, towards the road and … towards a gentleman who was sitting on a bench embedded on his phone screen and typing like there  was no tomorrow who I soon gathered was the father of the sleeveless t-shirt boy.

As the boy carried on kicking the ball towards his father, his father continued to ignore him, to the point that left me wondering why the father brought the child to the playground in the first place. Perhaps he thought he was going to get some time off to do whatever he was doing on the phone whilst the child was in the playground playing.

But the child did not know how to play on his own, and looking around there were no more children his age to play with him and to play with my little one proved somehow boring for him (not for my son!). As a fact, although that afternoon was ideal to be out in the park playing and enjoying the sun, the playground was somehow empty.

So, this boy continued to kick the football towards his father, his father continued to ignore him and occasionally shout at him to leave him alone. The boy continued kicking the ball around until the ball got stuck up high on top of a vine.

– “Dad” I heard him calling “the ball”

– “What have you done now?” “Can’t you see I’m busy?” “Do you really have to be such a nuisance?”

– “It is not my fault. The ball went up there on its own”

– “Nothing happens just like that”

– “Dad, get it down”

– “Why should I?”

– “Dad get it for me”

At this point I could see the father quite angry and his face was red, about to burst. The father tried to get the ball down, and in the end the boy climbed up the vine, shook some branches and the ball finally fell on the ground again.

– “Don’t do it again” Said the father getting back to the bench, with the phone in his hand. “As you cannot play, we are going to get a burger”.

– “But dad” said the sleeveless t-shirt boy “You said you were going to play with me”

-“C’mon, get in the car. We are going to get a burger”.

So the boy got into the car, the father put his phone aside and they drove away. I carried on playing with my son, who was happily getting very dirty with mud.

No need to say the blunt answer from the boy struck me as to how children are very honest when it comes to promises and how we, adults try to deceive them time and again. Perhaps the father did have the intention but something overcame the intention and he had to postpone the play and get on his phone.

But then again, wouldn’t it be better to tell the truth to the child instead to forge expectations?

Oh well, lessons to be learnt.

Merry-go-round

After two years, I returned to Buenos Aires with my little one. The flight was horrendous – direct flight with British Airways – and we landed with sunny weather and 36 degrees, but I can say after a week being here that young sir is adapting slowly but surely to the heat, the food and the new faces around, his appetite increased and I am pretty sure he has grown in height – weight is difficult to measure, for him the scales are a toy and it is ever so funny to step in and out to see the light flash !-  but my arms can tell the difference in weight from a week ago.

His cheeks are rosy and even his mood has changed. He is not that cranky and demanding although today he has been “difficult” but I don’t know why. I blame everything on the sun and the warmth of the summer.

In any case, yesterday we went to the “plaza” which is in most cases in Argentina, a mix between a playground and park. It is important to remark that “plazas” are the heart and soul of every neighbourhood / city / village in Argentina; it is very popular to go during the evening to the “plaza” to gather around, to see what’s going on and to share a moment with friends, or if fancy takes you, to sit down and gaze or read a book.

The “plaza” is surrounded in most cases by the church and cafes, restaurants and ice cream parlours; in some cities what would be the village hall is right across the “plaza” together with the church, the Council hall, the bank and a cafe (cafes are inevitably near a “plaza”).

In such a public space you can find benches scattered around, concrete tables with chess boards made with black and white mosaics, and you do see people sitting down playing chess and drinking mate (mate is a traditional drink in Argentina) and of course playgrounds for children.

Some of these playgrounds have a merry-go-round beside the traditional games and structures for children like swings, see-saws, sand pits and slides. Needless to say a “plaza” with a merry-go-round is extremely popular, particularly during weekends, and if those weekends are sunny and warm, no need to say, they are simply a “must do” activity.

Another important fact is that the “plaza” is – being the heart and soul of every village/city and town – the best place to take the pulse of the socio-economic beat of the population. At the plaza people from different paths of life concur and diverge; it is important to note as well that Argentineans talk *a lot* not only between themselves but with complete strangers and if they could talk to trees who could answer or follow a conversation they definitely would.

And what is it Argentineans that talk about? Normally it would start with the weather and then 5 minutes later they will – trust me, they will – end up talking about politics and how bad the economy is, comparing the current price of potatoes to how the price was two months ago and so on and so forth. If the conversation goes any deeper, they probably will come up with solutions to the economy, how they would do things differently and end up waving goodbye to each other as if they were old friends.

I can tell that it is true the social situation is bad and the economy is even worse; it is absolutely true that the money is worthless and going out to the shops (and it is only for groceries and the absolute necessities) requires skills of an economist and a calculator in the hand. One needs to be a magician in the kitchen to be sure to use every scrap of food and is nowadays a must, turning it into something edible and perhaps nutritious, in order to stretch the money and live day to day.

I experienced this feeling of money falling like sand through my fingers the first few days I was here and of course going out doing the shopping for fruit, veg and dairy. Boy, I went out with a wallet full of money and came back with few coins!. Now I became more “savvy” and I do like everybody else, wait for the daily offers and walk reaching different shops looking for the best price.

Going back to my lovely Sunday afternoon, my son woke up from his afternoon nap and of course, being sunny and warm we decided to go to the “plaza” nearby where I used to go as a child. Needless to say, so many memories came back to my mind! The swings, the see-saws, the sand pit…and the merry-go-round.

My mother was very excited to take her grandson to the merry-go-round, like she did when I was little. My son was delighted with the prospect of getting himself on the merry-go-round, so after buying the ticket off they go, my son sitting in a horse and my mother standing by his side. I do not need to say that both were very excited and my son was in absolute awe to see the world from his horse and me waving like an idiot whilst trying to catch a glimpse of the moment with my camera.

The merry-go-round stopped and my son was craving for more; as soon as I tried to get him away from the horse he climbed up again and looked at me as if to say: “you are not thinking on going back home, are you?”  with a big smile and giggling; so I went to the lady who sold the tickets and queued to buy another ticket. Note, each ticket costs $ 6 per child per round (we are talking something  like 45 pence) and you must buy them there and then, preferably with change.

So, another ticket bought, another turn on the merry-go-round, this time it was my turn to get dizzy and my mother’s turn to try to take a picture. As I stepped down and tried again to take my son away from the merry-go-round (failing again) my mother looked at me and said go on buy another ticket, it is a lovely afternoon after all and we have plenty of time…

There I was queuing up to buy another ticket and observing a mother who was taking her children down from the merry-go-round and you could tell the children were quite unhappy with the situation, and the mother as well. The dialog was more or less like this:

– But mum….

– C’mon darlings now we have to go, it is time to go home, we had a drink, an ice cream and some popcorn…

– But we want another ride on the merry go round…

– Yes mum we do!

– Listen, we had two rides. That’s it. I cannot afford another ride.

– Mum…please…

– No. I’m sorry.

I saw the mother’s distress when she was saying no. When she was saying they had to go. As the dialog with the children extended for another 5 minutes, I heard the mother say to one of her children “I saved all week to bring you to the plaza and I am afraid I cannot save any more. I’m sorry darling” and she stroked her child’s head whilst holding the other child’s hand.

I saw in her eyes the sadness and the frustration of having to say no to her children and quietly walk them away from the merry-go-round. And we are talking about only 45 pence each child, which is in any case almost a pound to pay for both of them to have 3 minutes of fun and laughter.

As I was contemplating the scene a little hand grabbed my shirt asking for something and pointing  to the swings, and my mother all excited taking him and saying he changed his mind and now it was the turn of the swings and both of them started to walk towards them.

As I left the queue to follow them I was still with that scene in my head and I have to say as a mother I felt her pain and her frustration and even now as I write this I struggle to come to terms with this clear result of a socio-economic situation that stains this country and its inhabitants; I can only feel respect for this selfless mother who saves one peso after the other during the week to take her children out to the “plaza” and treat them to a couple of rides on the merry-go-round, ice cream and a soda.

I do hope their children have the same feeling towards her mother in the future.

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