Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

Anita Mathias's Blog on Faith and Art

On Juggling

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jugglingIrene, my 15 year old, has decided to become a master juggler. (I blame Baroness Susan Greenfield who told her class that juggling makes you clever).

And now the air is full of the swish-swish-swish of juggling balls.

And as for me, words and ideas which might have been sublime (one can always dream!) slip away with that swish-swish-swish!

“Irene, stop juggling within earshot, or I’ll confiscate those balls.”She looks at me pityingly.

“I am 15, mum. You can’t confiscate things anymore.”

Can’t I? Apparently not.

I return to juggling words.

Juggle. Juggle. Juggle. Coloured balls, words, ideas.

Hopefully something will emerge from all this juggling–cleverness, a blog post, a book…

* * *

 And here’s a muscular poem for your Sunday from a master word-juggler

 

Digging

BY SEAMUS HEANEY

Between my finger and my thumb

The squat pen rests; snug as a gun.

 

Under my window, a clean rasping sound

When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:

My father, digging. I look down

 

Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds

Bends low, comes up twenty years away

Stooping in rhythm through potato drills

Where he was digging.

 

The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft

Against the inside knee was levered firmly.

He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep

To scatter new potatoes that we picked,

Loving their cool hardness in our hands.

 

By God, the old man could handle a spade.

Just like his old man.

 

My grandfather cut more turf in a day

Than any other man on Toner’s bog.

Once I carried him milk in a bottle

Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up

To drink it, then fell to right away

Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods

Over his shoulder, going down and down

For the good turf. Digging.

 

The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap

Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge

Through living roots awaken in my head.

But I’ve no spade to follow men like them.

 

Between my finger and my thumb

The squat pen rests.

I’ll dig with it.

 

Happy Birthday, Irene: 14 Photographs for 14 Years

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As the family’s resident expert baker, Irene insisted on making her own cake

Four layered strawberry filled cake with candles.

Four layered strawberry filled cake with candles.

It tastes even better than it looks–the butter cream and the juice from the sliced strawberries soak into the cake to produce a luscious result.

with the first slice removed

with the first slice removed

She gives detailed instructions of how she did it on her blog.  To celebrate we also found 14 pictures from her younger years.

Irene, as you can see, has always loved cake

Capture-4-blog [Read more…]

Irene and Anne of Green Gables

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Irene and I were swimming together at David Lloyd’s, her chattering animatedly as usual. Finally, I said, facetiously, “Irene, let’s be quiet for a bit. Let me meditate on my sorrows.” “Oh, don’t,” she said, “You’ll become morbid!” What? “Where did you learn that from, Irene?” “Anne of Green Gables.” She has listened to all 8 Anne books & Anne is her general source of wisdom and knowledge. What competition!!

My heavenly daughter, Irene

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I generally sort out logistical challenges, like how to provide lunch for 15 people in the context of prayer.

I was puzzling this out, while Irene kept coming up with every more time-intensive and impractical menu suggestions.

“Hush, Irene,” I said, “I am trying to discuss this problem with my Heavenly Father.”

I said. “Well,” she said, “Why don’t you just discuss it with your heavenly daughter?”

In Which Irene Analysed British Political Speech

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I no longer repent that I bought Irene her Ipod touch on impulse. She listened to all three leader’s debates on her Ipod this morning, and was hugely amused at the Oxford Union style of debating. Nick Clegg interrupting to ask, “Yes or no, yes or no?” Come on, Nick, life isn’t that simple.

Her other observation: “They may have said umm, umm, but they did not say, “Ya” even once.” We are trying to rid her of her new speech tic of punctuating phrases with an enthusiastic “Ya,” as it’s infecting the rest of the family.

And we’re succeeding, ya; we really are, ya. Isn’t that great, ya?

In which Zoe gives Irene a shirt declaring “I am always right,” and Irene almost believes it

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Irene uses her beloved Ipod touch to email people, listen to countless books on tape, play scrabble and boggle, and get a word a day sent to her, which she memorizes.

She announced today that she is now officially cleverer than me because I didn’t know 5 of these obscure words! And because her birthday present from Zoe was a T-shirt which said, “I am always right.”

I am, alas, too old to make that claim.