The Sun in the Clouds

Collages that make me think of a dear friend. The brown sugar in the glass jar at that new cafe that tastes like molasses. Listening to Fela Kuti whilst driving back from climbing big hills at the week-end. Thinking about those 78 vinyl records of my dads' and wondering which high life musicians they featured. Walks home with my youngest boy after picking him up from the childminder. Sending my children to fetch things for me when I realise I don't have to keep running up and down the stairs. That boiled sweet that a kind colleague gave me that I put in the bottom of my handbag for a rainy day. The mittens with adorning pom poms that were a present from my three boys for christmas that I thought I'd never wear but that I adore. Getting round to writing a letter by hand to a friend who lives on the other side of the world. Making that daily phone call straight after work finishes to my eldest boy and hearing my boy say 'Hey mum!'. My husband telling me about a favourite memory about his mama from his childhood. The one where he could never remember the difference between fried or scrambled egg. The one where she told him a simple way to remember his favourite cooked egg, it was the one with the sun in the clouds. In the twenty two years we have been together, last week was the first time that I heard about this memory. What magic! What a mama! So, the life lesson I have learned from that. Aways, always try and find the sun in the clouds. It will be there somewhere but you might just have to ask someone else for a little help in finding it.

What a soon to be 8 year old boy collected on a Summer's day

What I heard

. Children playing in the school next to the park
. A train
. Dogs barking
. Birds making a tweeting song
. Water splashing down at the water fall


What I saw

. Fresh helicopters on the ground
. Old tree that has been cut down
. Nettles
. Cute labradoodles, one black, one white
. Mushrooms growing on a dead tree stump
. A Woodpecker
. A duck feather floating in the air by the duck pond
. A Butterfly
. Some friends from school
. Bamboo in a muddy marsh
. The tree where I liked to squish berries when I was little
. Earwig hiding in the Elderflower bush
. MILA
. A squirrel
. A Robin
. Unstable rocks sticking out of the ground
. A feather by a pine tree


What I smelt

. Roses in the rose garden (I couldn't smell it much but mum could)


What I tasted
. Banana from mum's bag of goodies
. Water from my water bottle
. A couple of chocolates from mum's box that Year 4 gave her as a  leaving present
. Salt on my fingers
. Wind in my mouth
. A burp 

Longing, Belonging To A Place Buried Inside

I am afraid of forgetting the past. I cannot remember a time when I wasn't afraid of this. I am certain that at its root, is a concern about loss of identity. In fact, loss itself. It seems common, for those that have lost a person central to their lives, especially at a young age. The loss of my father when I was ten years old has remained one of the greatest sources of both heartache and formidable inspiration. Even twenty years ago when I was a Fine Art undergraduate, I remember seeing some of my peers rolling their eyes into the backs of their heads as I would present my work in crits. I wasn't afraid of the content of my work. I wasn't afraid to be exploring my past. I wasn't afraid to be mixed-race and fascinated with my own ethnic and cultural background. Still, I was simply afraid that if I did not seek more of this story and its beginnings and meanderings, I was afraid I would forget this story. His story, my story, both mine and his story and the story of our people and how we came to be.

My Aunty called from Mamprobi, Accra a few weeks ago. Several messages had been left from mobile numbers with the Accra - Ghana prefix, which I immediately recognised whilst I was out walking with my husband and children. My heart immediately beat faster and felt like it was being pulled down with great force towards my feet, a weight that felt unbearable. I reached the car and sat quietly and the whole journey I wondered, is it my Uncle or my Aunty that have passed away? Just the night before, I had dreamed very clearly of my dear Aunty. I was sat alongside her and she held my hand in hers and as she talked I couldn't hear or make out the words that she was saying but she smiled with her eyes, that way that she does and everything felt ok, everything felt safe and peaceful. I took my hand from hers and held hers tight and I leaned in and whispered in her ear and again she smiled with her eyes. When I reached home and dialled my cousins number, after a short exchange she said 'Ma wants to speak with you'. Immediately my heart swelled with relief, my Aunty was alive. It quickly deflated though, my Uncle, her husband had passed away. He was 91 years old. 

I have tried and tried to write about my Uncle and the yet the words have not come, perhaps it is too soon. There is so much about what I feel for both him and my Aunty that can't be described with words. These two precious people drew my husband and I into their arms years ago when I returned to Ghana for the first time since leaving at age ten. These precious people made my husband and I a part of their lives and gave me that sense of home that I had been craving since I had left my fathers land. As long as it has been once more that I have been absent from my fathers land, I carry the land in my heart, just as I do my Aunty and Uncle. I carry them in an inside pocket full to bursting point with funny things that my little ones have said, with memories of my father happy and sad, memories of the stories that Aunty told me of the reception my white skinned mother received from the Ghanaian family, with thoughts that I want to share like how my hands are becoming more and more like my fathers and my Aunty's with each passing day, with songs, ones that I remember my Aunty singing and ones that I have learned since that make me think of her. I have written about my Aunty Adelaide and my Uncle Andrew many times, here and here and here. They are a source of salt and light and forever will be. 

Perhaps for now the best way I can describe how I feel is  a way I have often felt. A feeling that I have described again and again in many different guises through my art practice of many years. Something that I wrote about extensively on an album that my husband and I wrote and recorded in the past. The lyrics have sat alongside me for days now and as my husband will be quick to tell you, I am not a master at remembering lyrics, even my own. But these I have been repeating over and over, as I often do at restless times.

Outside, warm air licking my neck
Ada braiding my hair.

And I'm sat here watching them play.
Girls jumping up and down.

In slow motion
I think of what it is to be away
Longing, belonging to a place buried inside.

I won't dismay
At chipping away at hope.

In slow motion
I have to play down the significance
of this place my father called home.
As I remember both the tears and joy.

Riding a wave
Purging my desire
Finding all the cracks are real.

And now I roll in truth.
True to the bone.

Tides

Last night I came down with my first cold of the autumn season. I felt compelled to make chicken soup and so I did so even though I know I won't consume it, it's just the comfort of it, the process. It makes me think of my Grandma Peppermint and it signals winter, it signals the call for nourishment. Right now, I'm sitting here enjoying the silence. Sitting here thinking of sunday morning, when the lack of my signal to chivvy everyone along meant that the family were running late, very late for church. When I was being less than gracious about it and may have uttered some stereotyped words about the male species. When that hubby of mine recognised the need in me for quiet and took those boys of ours and himself off and out of the house, leaving me in the thick of quiet. That was when I curled up on the sofa in my flannel pj's and listened gratefully to the beautiful low fi hum of my vhs copy of 'The Way We Were' playing. Just me and Katy and Hubble. Of course I cried big sparkly diamond tears as I always do and I felt an ache of sadness for the rest of the day in that nostalgic, self indulgent kind of way that washes over you when you have the time to allow it in. That family of mine were out for hours, and between cooking a couple of meals I was even able to watch a little of my very worn 'Lovesexy' live concert on vhs too. But then I heard the key in the door and my eldest walked in and uttered 'Cool, Prince!' I watched him as his eyes widened as he watched 'Cat' pulsating to Prince's lyrics 'Glam Slam, Thank you Mam, You really make my day'. Alarmed that my boy had stepped and fallen into the crevice of my adolescence, I quickly switched it off and came back to earth, transported back from my memories with a mighty glam slam.

Today seems to be one of those days for drifting, drifting in and out of my memories. I can see myself sat bolt upright on one of those hard wooden chairs at my school in Mamprobi. The sun is squeezing through a hole in part of the corrugated iron roof and is casting a shape on the cement floor of my classroom which is hypnotising, especially when on occasion is seems to dance a little. I am watchful because the teacher whose name I forget but that might be Mr. Quashie, is staring at me. He is holding a cane in one hand with the tip of the cane held in the palm of his other hand. He moves the tip of the cane in and out of the palm of his hand, opening and closing his palm as he does so, walking, pacing along the rows of chairs with pupils sat on them. He is asking us to recite our times tables, we are six years old. He approaches my desk and asks me a times tables question. I stand up from my chair as protocol requires and I answer correctly. As I return to my seat, heart racing, legs wooden like the chair itself and fingers shaking, Mr.Quashie as we'll agree to call him, utters these words: 

"Don't think that you will get preferential treatment just because you are half-caste"

He looks at me scornfully at first and then smiles and I experience that feeling of utter confusion, that feeling that has you on guard, that feeling that tells you that a smile is not always a smile. I take a deep breath and and look out of the large square window frame, the one that frames the blue, blue ocean that sits behind my school building. I watch the waves turn from blue to white, from blue to white and then I quietly pull my chair in closer to my table and I sit bolt upright, ready once again. There is no view of the ocean today but still there are waves, some come big and heavy and completely wash me away. Others come slowly and just brush my toes. I am grateful for each of them and what they bring and however hard it is at times to still be standing after the crash of the fiercest of waves, I can at least know that it can be done. I can still stand and that's enough for me today.

Her Hands

Her hands can move me to tears, they just can and always have. From the memory of my head in her lap, with her stroking my hair and the scent of onions on her fingers, to the cracks that appear in each crease and more when she has toiled too much. Watching them bob and weave as she knits and talks so effortlessly. Seeing that bulbous vein, the blue one that has always liked to stand proud. I have watched it for years, ever since I first noticed it when we lived amidst the tropical heat of my fathers homeland. The heat would conduct an experiment against her skin and I would watch for changes throughout the day. I would note when that blue vein had swelled and grown in size.  Sometimes more of them came. They would come for many reasons, from carrying our food from the market, miles and miles in the burning heat. From washing each member of our households clothing by hand with the cheap soap they rightly called 'don't touch me'. From hours spent hand stitching our school uniforms and there were four of us children, each of us required to have at least two uniforms plus others for chapel and for 'away' outfits I think they were called. The hours she spent, with me sat between her knees, comb in hand trying to make sense of this hair of mine so unlike her own. After bringing my hair together, she would carry out the same thing each time. I can still feel the last scooped hand movement on my head, where she would start at the centre of my forehead and draw her scooped hand backwards, finally patting at my hair trying to flatten it. I think of the days when she would patiently demonstrate different sewing stitches. I remember just the way she would reach inside her special sewing box and place the thimble on her middle finger. I can see it glistening in the light with each cycle of the needle being pushed through the fabric. I thought then and I think now, how clever her hands are. How lucky I am to be near to those hands. 

It was these hands that I pictured when I waited for her to come home off a late shift in my teen years. These hands that I knew would have drawn the keys from her handbag in the last stages of her bus journey in readiness to open the front door. The hands that for many years were tainted by her use of cigarettes. The ones that I could anticipate her picking at like a hobby whilst she smoked her cigarette. The same hands that swaddled my newborn son when he was barely hours old, those same hands that held him so expertly for his first bath as I stood back to observe and learn, noting that thumb and forefinger hook that supported my newborns head so easily. The same hands that I held in my earliest memory, where she led me to a sweetie shop to buy a packet of chocolate buttons and it was just her and me, probably a first memory because it was so rare for it to be just me and her and I held onto her hand as tightly as could be, somehow afraid to loosen my grip. Her hands are now morphing into her own mothers hands, this comes I guess with the passing of time. One day last year I watched as she clasped those hands together as she captured my sons, her two grandsons in her arms. That's when it struck me that they were no longer the hands of my mother, but the hands of my grandmother. Familiar and unrecognisable all at once, like so many parts of our intertwined life. Part of me begrudgingly gives up the old hands, recognising that I cannot keep them forever, not on this earth anyway although I am sure they are buried deep within my memory forever more. Part of me looks to my own signs, my own history, my own hands and I see some small traces of her. Right there in my hands. Right there as I look down upon them. I look and I stare. I keep looking and as I do I feel them changing, even in that moment. Changing forever, just like her and I, forever changing, forever intertwined.

My Middle Sister

It's my middle sisters' birthday today. The sister who is three years my senior. She's the one who famously, used to lock me in our parents room when we were young and make me learn hymns. That one. I would often take my time getting dressed in the morning so that I could see which clothes she picked and then I would pick clothes that matched hers as closely as I could manage. She found this annoying. She is also the one who found me at the side of the house, hiding, when I'd fallen into a river nearby and got swept away and had been rescued by some locals from our area. She convinced me that it was the right thing to tell mum the truth and helped me pluck up the courage to enter the house to explain away my adventure. 

I used to sit outside her bedroom door and watch her read just because I wanted to be near her. She also found this to be annoying. When at age eleven she left for boarding school, I pined for her. I remember dreaded car journeys to drop her off at school, with a lump in my throat the whole way and pinned as closely to her as I could get in the back seat of the car. I would watch out for the splash of my occasional  tear hitting the leather seat and the sun beating down on us drying it up in no time. I remember trying to make the journey fun, trying to laugh but feeling the hard hitting reality that we were about to be separated by nearly eighty miles and for months at a time. 

Once, when we were teenagers and she was no longer at boarding school but was as usual pre-occupied reading a book, and when I felt that she had neglected me for far too long, I used my mum's lighter and kept pretending to light her socks. I never seemed to grow tired of trying to pry her away from what I considered distractions from me. I was, shall we say, pretty persistent. So again, after some time had passed, I'd take another strike at the lighter getting closer and closer to her sock, trying to motivate her to put her book down. Well, eventually she did look up from her book because I had been a little careless and struck that lighter too close to her sock and suddenly I was filled with panic as I saw a blue flame with an orange edge travel up her sock towards the hem of her trousers. I leapt on top of her and threw my flailing arms upon her feet with tears in my eyes and a tightening pain in my chest. She casually looked up and said the words 'I don't want to talk to you, I'm reading my book, go away!' But then, she looked at me and saw the upset in my eyes and began to pick up the scent of her now singed socks. She glanced down and noticed the orange pattern left by the extinguished flame and she guffawed in shock at what she had just narrowly escaped. After shock had left me, I smiled to myself, I had after all got her to look up from her blasted book. Yes! 

I pined once again when she was nineteen and left for university. I pined for her at many different times in my life. I longed for her attention many times too. I received it many many times also and drank it in greedily. I pine for her even now, when life is busy and we don't speak for days and weeks, days and weeks. Of course it doesn't matter how many days or weeks or months or years that pass by because we share all of this. It's all stored up. The good stuff, the bad stuff, the funny stuff, the cringey. All of it. I think back to promises we made each other as children and how inconceivable it was back then, to think that we could go these days and weeks without talking and teasing and laughing and fighting and making up and talking and teasing and laughing at each other, at one another, together and apart and all at once. And when I think about it, it's not so different. Yes, there are changes but yes we are still together, still apart, still one another and all at once. And you know, if we lived in the same house now, I'd still sit outside her room. Happy Birthday Ali Pali Poodle! 

She was so darn cute!

Yep. That's her on the right. She was one of those clever, self motivated, geeky kids who thought about her plans for the future!

Linking up to:

When I was a girl, I had a favourite t-shirt.

Photos by Stuart Tonge

When I was a girl, I had a favourite t-shirt. It had a lion on the front, a lion standing, surrounded by tall green grass. The kind of grass that I imagined you would see in an Africa that I was unfamiliar with, the kind of Africa like my mum read about in paperback books with titles like 'Out of Africa'. I  think I can remember the day that I was given that t-shirt, it was the day that my father arrived back in Accra from a trip to England. He had been working short term in England as a locum and had arrived with a suitcase full to bursting point, filled with goodies for all of this. This was rare and this was a treat. When it reached my turn, I remember my father sitting me on his lap and reaching for a pile of new clothes that he had purchased for me. On the top of that pile was this t-shirt with the 'Out of Africa' scene that I so often dreamed of. The lion was padded which gave it a three dimensional feel, this became less padded and less three dimensional with time and much wear and after many, many washes. I also remember how sad I was the day that I spilled coconut water on my favourite t-shirt and even though I told my mother immediately and she rinsed it as quickly as she could, small brown freckles can still be seen on the t-shirt till this day. 

When I left Africa at ten years old, I had to leave many things behind but my most precious belongings I was asked to gather into a small bag that accompanied me as hand luggage on the plane. This t-shirt was one of those precious belongings. Some time last year, my mother found this t-shirt amongst the other few precious keepsakes that each of my siblings and I and my mother returned to the uk with. She wondered if I might like to take it away with me, knowing how nostalgic and sentimental I am over family heirlooms and family heritage. But I didn't, I didn't want to separate it from the other precious items, they somehow seem necessarily bound to one another, for now at least. My hubby took this picture just moments after my mother unexpectedly and casually said 'Oh Kate, I've got something to show you!'. As soon as I saw it, I could immediately feel my throat tightening and my eyes beginning to sting and I glanced over at my own little ones and realised that my favourite t-shirt was the size that would fit their kind. In a flash, I can see myself crouched down playing in the dust, looking up at the sun till my eyes blur and I look and look till I have to turn away from the sun. I pretend to be that lion waiting in the tall green grass. I can feel the heat on me and I can even smell the heat, you know how heat smells when it burns down on the dust? I am the lion. I am that lion in the Africa of  'Out of Africa' watching and waiting. Watching and waiting. Watching and waiting.

My friend wrote a book

A friend of mine recently wrote a book. It isn't published at the moment but BAM!!!! She wrote a book, just like that!!! I was and am so impressed. I haven't read it but the fact that out of nowhere she sat down and wrote a book and is now looking at how to market it to publishers is endlessly exciting. At the end of our get together the other day we made a giggly promise to one another to be 'more ambitious'. We also promised one another that by the time that we next meet up, we will have something to report that reflects this new 'ambition' that we have committed to. With that in mind, I haven't been able to stop thinking about Susie Sue and the soon to be sequel. Ideas have been buzzing around for some time but I haven't done much more than put a few narrative ideas on paper. At the week-end however I was newly inspired after a quick road trip to visit Page 45, the only shop 'comic shop' I know that doesn't smell of fart and that I'd happily hang out at all day long! Maybe my book could be about an angsty artist/father, who bundles his wife and kids into their car for a quick road trip to explore the city where he truly discovered his Artist calling and that led him to create an independent label that releases and publishes art and music .... Oh wait, that's just what our saturday looked like and it was fun, fun, fun. I love an impromptu trip down memory lane, I love an impromptu road trip!

NB I love an impromptu blog post too but it does however mean that my phone cable is downstairs and my legs won't consider budging from my bed, therefore I can't upload photos of said road trip here tonight! Don't worry, tomorrow's another day, another blog post to be eeked out!

Where the wild things are

I have long been a fan of the Maurice Sendak classic 'Where the wild things are'. It is a book that I read regularly before and after having children, one that manages to take you right back to the very insides of what it feels like to be little. Over the last few days whilst visiting family I have thought of this book often, particularly whilst watching my offspring interacting with their cousins. You see there's just something about cousins, a special kind of something, the kind of something that lent itself so generously to Sendak's description of childhood. It's a kind of magic, although not of the cauldron bubble sort nor the supernatural kind but very much the enchantment kind, very much of an innocent kind just like God intended. I remember as a child carrying out exciting and ludicrous things in the company of my cousins. Why? Because when I was amongst them I felt like I had wings and was sure I could fly! There was power in our union. Watching these youngsters recently I could see the adrenaline dispersing amongst them, I could see the momentum gathering and unless I'm mistaken I believe I could see their young wings lifting, readying for flight! What a blessing to be present for this! It was an especially exciting time to gather together as we were celebrating the arrival of my beautiful and healthy niece Ester Zoe, who we are calling Essie and she is truly delightful! 

Nieces and nephews also come into that special kind of something category, separate from you yet so much part of you at the same time. I am very blessed by my many nieces and my one and only nephew and they each have a special place right in that heart of mine. I assure you that I am not biased when I tell you that my nephew is brilliant. Hands down that boy is one of the funniest people I know! He is clever and observant and wise beyond his years and long ago surpassed my intelligence. I love how naughty he makes me want to be and on the occasions that I act up, I love how he looks out of the corner of his eye at me with a mix of thrill and bemusement! Then there's my niece Jessica, this special one gives the kind of cuddles that keep fresh in your memory for days and days afterwards, squeezing you with great affection like her life depended on it. There's also my other niece Nini who each time she takes my hand in hers independently I melt, her hand feather light and fragile like a bird, just like her mama's! Oh how I am going to wallow in this soppiness, in this love and wallow too I shall in the splendor and privilege of watching all of these fledglings grow.

Jessica Katy who I'm proud to say was named after me.

Cousins sharing a moment - Nini & Zach

One of the funniest ever - Joe

My baby - Elliott

My beautiful sis-in-law (Aunty) Eli and Zach holding cousin Essie

Photo by Stuart Tonge

Photo by Stuart Tonge

Photo by Stuart Tonge

Photo by Stuart Tonge

Note my lovely brother-in-law David to the left of the picture. 

Hubby with Joe & Essie

Proud uncle and big brother

Childhood Treasure

I often talk here about the fact that I grew up in Ghana and one of the things that was pretty hard about leaving Ghana under difficult circumstances was leaving behind a lot of childhood treasures. Ten years after both leaving Ghana and my dad passing away, my mum decided to make a poignant trip back. When she was leaving she asked if amongst some of our belongings still residing with relatives in Ghana there was anything in particular I would like her to return with. Two of my favourite books sprang to mind immediately, in particular 'Shadow the Sheep-Dog' by Enid Blyton. I have fond memories of my mum reading this book to me and it was one of few things that I often thought of and longed for. My mum did indeed return from her trip with the very treasures I had missed so much. I knew back then that when I has children of my own that I wanted them to enjoy these books alongside me and this week that time has finally come. I am in the midst of pure nostalgia as I read this wonderful book to my boys! The inscription in 'Shadow the Sheep-Dog' is equally special, it was a gift that my mum received on her ninth birthday from her friend Elizabeth in 1952. I remember as a child being so fascinated and a little baffled by the idea of my mum ever being nine years old. I was talking to my mum about all of these thoughts and memories this week when she visited and as she spoke of her deep regret that my siblings and I had been separated from many of our childhood treasures. As a parent myself now, I empathised with her desire, even now, to 'make it all better'. I wanted to reassure her that actually it didn't really have a deep impact on me having to leave our extensive collection of books. Just then I glanced up from the lunch we were sharing and all I could see right before me were floor to ceiling bookshelves with rows and rows and rows of my books. I looked at mum and we laughed a little as we recognised that perhaps the experience did have a deeper impact than I had at first thought. Books truly are wonderful, they are dear friends, good company, they are familiar and comforting, they serve as reminders of space and time and their presence on my shelves offers a much greater meaning than simply the words contained within their pages.