snow-white/cook
(see Keri Smith, How to be an explorer of the world)
my grand-father has turned 90 today. 
this blog turned three years old today. three years and 493 posts. such a long time for a blog, such a short time in a human life.
i am menstruating for the first time in exactly two years. november 2006 was the last time. odd thing, this baby-belly-breast business. odd thing too how much one can miss monthly bleeding. i felt all new yesterday, full of possibilities. real. strong. big. with lots of argggghhhh in my belly. and an odd urge to treat myself to something to mark this new phase. so in my usual weirdo way, i went online and got myself these. and this (i tell you, medieval torturers had nothing on me). i also found this little piece of additional information:
afternoon baking with new friends. Jet and Isabelle had a great time baking and a great time eating, and Antoine came up with a creative toothless solution for his 'falling star' (suck on it until it melts). even the mamas managed to try one each before they cooled down and turned into rocks (the taai taai that is, not the mamas). (marc just came in to say they taste great (the taai taai, not the mamas), although some are a little hard...) (... he also mentioned making tea and watching morse with me...) (... and i can hear him cleaning the kitchen now...) (... and clearly these are the very reasons i married the man)
it's only november. and already i am depressed, exhausted, sick, tired and ready for summer. can't believe there is still december, january, february, march and (if last year's luck holds out) april to go before the sunshine, the warmth, the light. bah. am recovering from third flu in a row. the farm bankrupcy situation is still up in the air, unlike the gorgeous autumn leaves, which lie in sad dried up heaps on our street, brown and dejected, sneakily concealing dog diarrhea and other surprises. bah. i managed to miss autumn, my favourite season. it simply passed me by.
(PS. for those whose french is as good as my catalan, i have taken the freedom to translate: It sends no warning, it simply arrives
It’s coming from far away
It has been shuffling from shore to shore
With its sulky face
And then one morning, as you wake up
It’s almost nothing
But it’s there, making you sleepy
In the small of your back
The ache of living
The ache of living
That you must keep on living
Whatever living may cost
You can wear it on your shoulder
or as a jewel on the hand
As a flower in your buttonhole
Or just on the tip of your breast
It’s not necessarily misery
It’s not Valmy, it’s not Verdun
But it’s tears in the corner of your eyes
At the thought of the day that dies, at the thought of the day to come
The ache of living
The ache of living
That you must keep on living
Whatever living may cost
Whether you come from Rome or America
Whether you come from London or Peking
From Egypt or Africa
Or from the Porte Saint-Martin
We all make the same prayer
We all walk the same road
How long it is, the road, if you’re walking
With that ache in the small of your back
No matter that they try to understand us
Those who come to us with naked hands
We no longer want to hear them
We cannot, we are all spent
And alone in the silence
Of a night that knows no end
Suddenly we think of them
Of those who did not return...
...From the ache of living
Their ache of living
That they had to keep on living
Whatever living may cost
...And without warning, it arrives
It’s coming from far away
It has been walking from shore to shore
With a smile on its lips
And then one morning, as you wake up
It’s almost nothing
But it’s there, filling you with wonder
In the small of your back
The joy of living
The joy of living
Oh, come and live it
Your joy of living...)
we came home yesterday from a wind-blown weekend by the seaside with our beautiful belgian friends (two-footers and four-footers) to find a letter waiting on our doormat. not just any letter, though, the letter. after a suspense-ful two weeks, two letters to the town council and some excellent advice from a homeschooling lawyer (not a contradiction in terms for those of you who wonder), Isabelle has been granted an exemption from the dutch schooling act. she is free!
isabelle and i have devised a way to immortalize her art. it involves plain second-hand t-shirts, one of her drawings, and my free-style reproduction of the latter on the former. it's good for her (she gets most of the credit, and can burrow for hours in my large stash of fabric scraps). it's good for me (since i am not 'the creator', my editor tends to shut up, and i can practice with imperfection. loverly). 
the critics have been giving us raving reviews. so beware, oh various december recipients, you've got yourself some old t-shirts coming.
it has been quiet around here for a long time, for which i have an odd urge to offer an apology... until i start wondering who it is i am apologizing to, and then i get into trouble. you know, the usual (who's reading this? who am i writing it for? why am i writing? and other existential blah blah questions). so. no apology then. i have been busy surviving. had a burnout (difficult stuff). sort of clambered out of burnout only to find ourselves in a potential bankrupcy (the farm we were buying and then not buying and then maybe buying and finally really NOT buying, enormous legal difficulties with that, lots of uncertainty and the damocles sword of having to pay incredible amounts of money for sure (but not knowing as yet how much)). it turned out to be too much for me to also keep up with this here space.
we celebrated the birthday of peter pan today. it seems that although he does not want to grow up he would like occasionally to celebrate. so we complied. with garlands, balloons, gifts (i am now the proud owner of my own mowgli doll and a barbie television). and a french-style apple tart. this was a real joint-venture: isabelle wrote the shopping-list, carried the groceries from the store, made the dough, rolled out the dough, filled the pie with apples, smeared the apricot jam over the top of the pie and licked clean every utensil and container she could lay her hands on. i supervose. antoine threw the cored, peeled and sliced apples into the bowl with water and lemon juice. and then out of it again. fun was had by all.
just found out (here) that it means 'that which gives life meaning' in japanese. nowadays, little big things. a new yoga class. sunshine. signing up for sewing lessons. these patterns. this book. this book. this artist. an entire day spent lazing about. the fact that my mobile phone has a video function.
we spent the weekend roaming a belgian forest with some two-footed and some four-footed friends. then, on sunday morning, isabelle and i went for a mama-daughter stroll, just the two of us. and we found this one spot, with this one tree, absolutely perfect for a fairy house (we'd been talking about building one ever since this book arrived in the mail).
there it is. we started with the main house (on the right in the photograph), but then isabelle decided we needed a separate bathroom annex, since the roof of the main house should be waterproof, but the roof of the annex should let in the light and the rain (the rain to fill the bathtub and the light so you can look at the sky from your bath). the bathroom also contains a towel-rack with a leaf towel and a leaf mirror on the wall (mama, the fairy can't see herself in that mirror, but look, when the sun falls into the house like this, she can see her shadow reflected in it).
the little poles around the house fence off the fairy's garden, and the beech nuts (green balls) laying in the niche between the house and the bathroom are the fairy's reserve food supply for the winter.
here is a view of the inside of the main house, you can see the white table on the right, with a stool covered with a red rose-petal cushion. behind the table, in the far corner, tucked into the roots of the tree, there is a bed, with a very soft feather mattress and a down-and-leaf blanket. next to the bed (on the left), there is a rocking chair made from the same birch bark as the table, and on the floor there is a green leaf carpet in the shape of a flower. on the table, there are bowls (walnut) and cups (acorn), and a flower vase containing the most amazing little feather i have ever seen (real-life size of feather 2 mm).
i simply loved doing this with her. it was magic. and i had such trouble leaving it behind in the woods; i wanted to take it home, or alternatively move right in myself. 'but mama', she said, 'if we don't leave, how can the fairy ever come out of hiding to look at her new home?'. sigh.
