Tuesday Morning Grumps

 Okay, I promised something a bit more light-hearted, this time. So try this on for size – a poemy-story thing I wrote for children, called ‘Tuesday Morning Grumps’.

Contrary to popular opinion, writing for children is the HARDEST writing to do- every word has to count, language has to be ‘fresh’, can’t be preachy, has appeal to kids, empower them and ideally be fun and/or funny, and if you make it rhyming it’s DOUBLY HARD – rhythm and cadence have to be perfect, rhymes have to be original, the story still has to ‘move along’ and it has to fit in a 32 page children’s book layout. All in all, a TALL order.

You know how Tuesday mornings are? – Too long since the weekend to remember how that felt, DAYS before the next one so it’s too soon to even start looking forward to. It seem like Tuesday mornings  are when your socks get gets lost, the  washing won’t get dry, you run out of milk, the cat spews up….    I even put something special like a fruit string (“It’s fruit, not lollies J”) in the kids’ lunch boxes for ‘Cheer-up Tuesday’ so they actually have something to look forward to on a Tuesday.  

Kids’ books aren’t meant to be preachy, but I still wanted to get a message across, - that we all have days like ‘em and the ‘Tuesdays’ in our lives come & go any day of the week. By making the 'Grumps' a kind of a imaginary monster, I hoped kids would get the idea that they can control how they react to them.  
Just gotta go with it, and turn the page of the calendar….!

 

                    Read the poem to your kids & tell me how they react :)

 

Beware the Tuesday Morning Grumps!

You wake up one morning, a Tuesday, let’s say.

It seems like a perfectly promising day,

but the moment your toes touch the cold wooden floor

All your warm cosy dreams seem to fly out the door.

Everything, anything, starts to go wrong.

The day looms ahead looking dreary and long.

Beware- it’s the Tuesday Morning Grumps!

 They get in your hair and they fluff it about-

Impossible knots that you’ll never get out.

They hide your left sock somewhere under the bed.

You crawl down to get it and bump goes your head!

They mess with your mind ‘til you can’t even choose

which clothes to wear with your favourite shoes.

Beware- it’s the Tuesday Morning Grumps!

 They make porridge go cold and burn all your toast

and use up the strawberry jam you love most.

Then they spill orange juice all over your books

so your Mum gives you one of those ‘not again’ looks.

You go to the bathroom, the toothpaste’s all squeezed up.

The basin’s disgusting, like someone has sneezed up.

Beware- it’s the Tuesday Morning Grumps!

 

 

They mess up your homework, like the dog has chewed it.

Your library book looks as if someone has glued it.

They make your bag heavy, though your lunch isn’t in it.

You’re rushing and racing ‘till the very last minute.

You stub your big toe but there’s no time to fuss,

if you don’t hurry up, you’ll be late for the bus.

Beware- it’s the Tuesday Morning Grumps!
 

 But as Tuesday wears on, they get tired and lazy

Of thinking up tricks to make you go crazy!

Things start to go better, they slink sadly away

It turns out, after all, to be quite a good day.

By bedtime that night, you’ve rid the Grumps from your head.

Thinking ‘what a great day’, you snuggle down into bed.

But…..

Beware the Wednesday morning grumps!

A moment of remembrance

This month marks 5 years since my Dad and brother died, both of cancer, within 10 days of each other. Now there’s a story – truth is stranger than fiction after all! The poem is pretty much Johnny, straight up, and attempts to note that story.  

 

Remembering John

John,    who shares my father’s name and for many years, the same address

John,    who never spoke, withdrawn, surly, silent, rude, to the fury of my father

John,    who called me a “bloody little nuisance” and had no regards for the picture of a tractor I had drawn him for Christmas

John,     who went to Holland, his first big OE, and came back talking so much we couldn’t shut him up

John,     who married and had 4 children, now all grown up and having children of their own

John,     who loved his farm and his cows, his tractors and his motorbikes

John,     who once said he’d “sell the bloody lot and move to town” except that he wouldn’t know what to do with himself

John,     who once told me he didn’t know if land would keep increasing in value, but he did know they weren’t making any more of it

John,     who sat and told me stories at a party, after a beer or 2, and laughed and talked for hours

John,     who was told shortly after his 50^th birthday (what a party!) that he had a brain tumour

John,     who quietly resigned himself to his fate, saying ‘what else can I do?’

John,     who, when my mother asked what he would like for his 51^st birthday, quietly asked for 20 more years please

John,     who I sat with in hospitals and homes, at bedsides, holding his hand, talking, taking him out from those four walls when he could manage it

John,     the stoic farmer, who called a spade a bloody spade

John,     who quietly died on his own one night

John,     who, 10 days later, called our father, with whom he shares a name, and once again, the same address

 

 

As I’ve said before, death & tragedy bring forth poems and stories, as my way of learning to deal with it. ‘Spring heart’ is just a simple story about an old man experiencing his last moments, as I wondered what that must really feel like. I guess I’ll never be able to really find out how close I come.

 

Now, don't stress about the state of my mental health. But we all go through tough stuff, and I am thinking of friends as they 'take their turn'. Hopefully these pieces will connect to them and help them accept what is happening as a normal part of life.

 

Promise -  after this some more light–hearted pieces!

 

 

Spring Heart

He had been waiting for this moment all his life.

And now that it was here, it caught him by surprise, really.

He had been expecting it for years. Well, for always. Who could ever presume they had a tomorrow?

But he hadn’t expected it today. There was nothing to mark this day as momentous.

 

As the pains came and went in waves, bands of tightness across his chest, he gasped for air, knowing that this was, indeed, the day.

He reached for his chest, as if holding his heart would encourage it to go on just a little longer.

 

He had just sat down at the kitchen table with his morning coffee, feeling slightly dizzy and nauseous after his usual short walk to collect the post from the mail box. Daphne was in town, she would be away for hours. So it was just him, his coffee, the morning paper, his blossoming spring garden through the plated glass, and the coronary.

 

Spring. How ironic. Spring was meant to be a time of growth, of renewal. But not for him.

 

It was true. Your life did flash past your eyes. But his was more like a slow 8mm movie, with flickers and scratches, grey and disjointed, just like those old movies he took in the 70s when the kids were little and home movie cameras were new. He saw the boys, in their little checked rompers, splashing in the paddling pool. He saw Valerie, coy and pretty, like first loves should be. How she had stolen his heart! They had married way too young, people said it wouldn’t last, but the cancer took her long before complacency and divorce could.

 

He looked around. Perhaps if he could just reach his coffee. He would have preferred water, but the kitchen sink was a marathon away. His shaking hand knocked the cup, the coffee spilt to make a footbath in the saucer. He had always hated that, growled at Daphne whenever she delivered his coffee already slopping around the ankles of the cup. How petty those irritants seemed now.

 

Perhaps she would get sick of shopping and come home early? Perhaps he could reach the phone on the sideboard? He chuckled inwardly. She would never have remembered her mobile, much less have it fully charged and switched on.

 

Daphne. Sweet, obliging, grey-haired, Daphne. They had been good for each other in these later years. Company. Caring. She had that wicked sense of humour which kept him on his toes. Pushed him out to join the bridge club, take up bowls, attend the rose competitions - do things no self-respecting farmer would have done without a woman to cajole him into it. She would be devastated to find him here, slouched in his chair, at the kitchen table.

 

His breath came short and sharp now, matching the pains which spread from his heart, throughout his body. The heart- that symbol of love. Ironic, again, that it should be the thing to kill him. He’d spent all his life working for love. The years on the farm, the miles of fences he had built; the hours he had spent walking up and down the pit in the milking shed,  putting on and taking cups off cows; the hay he had cut, raked, baled, stacked in the barn and fed out to the stock; the ragwort he had pulled; the drenching... It was all for the people he had loved. The portraits drifted through his memory as his consciousness faded in and out. His boys, his wives, his family, his mates- yes, even his mates. That had been love, although no kiwi bloke would ever use that word out loud.

 

He felt poised on a precipice. The pain kept him still very much in this life, but he teetered on the brink of whatever came next. Is this how a caterpillar felt as it wove its cocoon? Did it have any consciousness of the process, if not the destination?

 

Thoughts of his sons flashed through his consciousness. They had both done well, but neither of them had followed him onto the farm. Perhaps he had been too hard on them, expected too much, wanted them to be who they were not? How would they take the news? Gary, in Sydney, a partner in some fancy accountant’s firm. Having to take a few days off for Dad’s funeral. Bit of a nuisance. Slight regret he hadn’t stayed a few days longer last Christmas. Phil, in Auckland, living the vibrant gay lifestyle. How had that happened to a good kiwi farm boy? It didn’t matter now, anyway, he thought. They were good kids. Men. They were men now. Good men. He’d done a good job on them really. They were kind, hard working, good blokes. Valerie would be proud.

 

A new wave of pain shot through his chest, extending from his breastbone, up to his throat, a strangulating, suffocating pain. It pushed up through his neck, his jaw, his shoulder, crippling, shooting pain, nothing like the angina he had ignored for years.

 

Years. Seventy seven, he had had, nearly seventy eight. A fair old innings, although you always hope for at least 5 more.  But it had to end sometime, somehow.

 

His moment had come.

 

And now that it was here, he wished he could go back and do each moment again, laugh more, worry less; play more, work less; love more, argue less. But it was too late for regrets.

 

In the end, it all came down to him. Just him, on his own.

 

He had lived.

 

He had had the gift of life.

 

He had done what he had done; he had not done, what he had not done.

 

With a final closing of his eyes, he let it be.

 

Linseed Oil

This is a short short story. I hope it is long enough to convey the intended meaning….

 

Often stories come to me from one phrase that I heard in a totally different context, and I make up a whole new scenario from. This one is a mixture of the real feeling I had of being first pregnant (mainly the nausea) back in the days on two incomes when we could afford new furniture, and the line ‘I guess we love one another’ from another couple of dear friends, whose fate was sealed together at something seemingly offhand and random. Happily, they are still together, unlike this fictional pair (there, now I’ve gone and told you the ending in case it was too subtle).

 

 

 

Linseed Oil

 

The wood was as dry and sallow as some of the books contained on its shelves. 

“About time someone did this,” he said, the words in themselves an accusation against her. “This ought to fix it. Been in the shed awhile. Should still be good though. Don’t think this stuff goes off.”

As soon as the lid was removed, the smell of the linseed oil permeated the room. Almost immediately she choked back a dry retch. It was as if her olfactory cells had the reaction imprinted upon them.

 

It threw her back 13 years, to that first dreaded excitement of knowing she contained a life within. The bookshelf had been new, the unmistakeable linseed smell wafted through the house. Each morning as she rose to get breakfast, the smell hit her first, followed by a wave of nausea. Then came the fear, which sat cold and hard, somewhere deep in her belly, near the soft, warm tissue that was to become another person.

She remembers telling him of her suspicions, almost as a weapon in a heated conversation about their unlikely future together. The arguments had been thick and fast, and now they mixed with words of blame and anger. Neither had planned on a baby, and indeed, each had been secretly planning a different future. A simple test result would decide their future. 

Although they both awaited it, the shrill, demanding telephone ring made them jump. He was the one who answered, nodded resolutely, and said ‘I see. Thank you,’ as he hung up the receiver.

“Well, I guess we love each other then.” was all he said.  

Almost without question, their lives had merged after that.

 

And now, two further lifetimes later, the stench of the linseed oil still made her physically ill.

“No. I was wrong. It goes off alright.” Too late, he resealed the lid. But the smell had already escaped and like an ethereal genie, could not be put back.

Their gaze held longer than was necessary.

“I’ll be off then,” he said lightly, and he firmly shut the door behind him, still carrying the jar of oil.

 

Confessions of a Coffee-holic

“My name is Monique Reymer and I’ve been a coffee-holic for most of my adult life.”

There. Now it’s out in the open.

For those of you who know me, this will come as no surprise, merely a confirmation of what you already suspected.

I don’t know if there is a cure. I’m not sure I want one. My new-ish coffee machine and I have an on-going relationship of mutual affection (Okay, its mainly one-sided- I adore it, I’m not sure it realises I exist), and it has ‘bought’ me many a friend, who, in our café deficient rural area, happily come to imbibe at my place. I’m sure it’s just the coffee they’re after. I usually just have two – or 3 – coffees before midday, and no obvious serious side effects to date. I blame (or credit) my Dutch heritage. The Dutch always have a ‘second’ everything – a ‘second cup,’ a ‘second drink’ and they even have a ‘second Christmas Day’!
 

A warm up exercise in the online writing course I have been doing was to ‘eat a piece of food and use it as a starter to write about’. I had my steaming, freshly brewed cup of coffee on the desk beside me, so it felt appropriate to use that as my subject. I had fun writing this and even more fun reading it to my friends one morning (over coffee, of course).

This got me thinking seriously about 'spoken poetry' or 'poetry slams' as it is called in the business. If you have never had the joy of experiencing this, check out ‘Sarah Kay’ as a good example. Her ‘if I should have a daughter’ was on a TED talk which I luuurved. Sarah Kay, TED talk: 'If I should have a daughter'  or this one with Katie Makkai - Pretty  I always did like public speaking (weird, I know. Most people hate it. I am a ‘closet exhibitionist’- lol. ) So I may be working more seriously on Spoken Poetry in future – watch this space- but for now, have a coffee as you read:

 

 

 

COFFEE

You can spend three hours a day playing the piano, practising and practising until every last note is perfect, the rhythm and cadence faultless, the nuance and emotion effortless. And then you play the performance piece, and it is done. If you don’t keep up the practice, it won’t stay perfect. You are only ever as good as your last performance. It’s not like a painting you can put on the wall, and say ‘see, look how good I once was’, even if you never paint again.

 Coffee is not like that. Coffee is like the piano. It doesn’t matter how many you have, if today’s is better or worse than yesterday’s. All that matters is the coffee you have right now.

 It starts with the aroma, long before the first drop is drunk. Scent wafts in the air, luring the senses of even the non-believers who stick to their herbal teas, teasing the nostrils and seducing the saliva glands. Then there is the ritual of the making – the whirr and hum of the grinder, the hiss and splutter of the milk frother, the gurgle and chug of the coffee maker, combining to make a symphony of impending caffeine.

The product itself is a sight to make many a barista swell with a sense of proud satisfaction. Soft milky whiteness, with an artful scattering of cinnamon dust on the snowy surface, hides the true content of the black, inky bitterness lurking beneath. 

 The cup, too, an important part in the illusion- sturdy, but beautiful; graceful, but functional; bright, but practical. The mere movement of lifting it to one’s lips, the aroma coming at full force towards the unsuspecting nose, the flavour ready to attack the innocent taste buds, are worthy the drama of a full length feature film.

Then, finally; The Tasting.   The foaminess of the milk, the smoothness of the blend, the gentle bitterness soothed by the hint of cinnamon, swirl around the mouth in a dizzying combination, rendering the brain defenceless as it is at once both drugged by the headiness of the brew, and then shocked, as if struck by a lightning bolt in the mouth. Alert now, the body admits defeat, as it succumbs to the giddying effects of a brew well made, well presented, and well imbibed.

The concerto is complete.

The audience rise to a standing ovation.

Today’s coffee was good.

 

 

 

 

Alternative Realities

Seeing the newspaper report of the 2 Degrees CEO & his wife being hauled out of their crashed wreckage off the coast of Raglan (not far from here) is somewhat poignant for me, as my partner is also a private pilot, as is his father – it’s been in his blood ever since he was a lad. There are no guarantees for any of us - every time we jump in a car, we take a risk of not making our destination. Flying is no different- there some increased risks (especially with aerobatics like he does!), but there are less idiots up there in the sky. Pilots are by nature very cautious folk, but still, sometimes sh*t happens, as it must have for the Hertz couple.   Arohanui.

 

When I write, inevitably I draw on my own life experiences. It may be as simple as a line I overhear which sparks an idea, which leads to a story, or it may be an actual experience I have gone through. The tricky thing is to write about these incidents without indicting anyone – including myself! So of course I change characters/scenes/ plots/ outcomes from the original, but still some may recognize the original occurrence.  What you will never know is which bits are real and which bits I made up!

 

One day I am going to take these stories I made up from real-life jump-off points and publish them in a book called ‘Alternative realities: things that might have happened but didn’t”.

 

This story will definitely be in it:

Elements.

I watch the clouds every day from my hilltop home, forming shapes and patterns over the landscape. As individual as personalities, no two clouds are ever the same. Some days they are painted streaks against the azure blue sky, wisps of vapour I can almost taste as a hint of lemon in an icy sorbet. Then there are days the balls of cotton fluff dance along the sky, animal shapes which contort and change as they race in the wind. Other days, they hang full and heavy, pregnant with rain, threatening, menacing.

 He should have known better than to take off that day.

 And the sunsets. Oh, the sunsets.  As the sun leans down in the western sky beyond the mountain, the last gorgeous golden rays radiated each day are taken by the clouds and enhanced. Silver linings shine out behind cumulus, fingers of light stretch through between cirrus, every slightest hint of colour is reflected and refracted to produce a rainbow of not just the usual orange and red and gold, but tangerine and cerise and mauve and peach, yes, peach - into the indigo evening sky. 

 ‘Take offs are optional, only landings are compulsory’, he often joked, not listening to his own advice.

 
Clouds. So innocuous. Almost nothing at all. Just vapour. Untouchable, unobtainable. You can walk right through them. So harmless, so innocent, so stunningly beautiful.
 

‘Metservice says it’s clearing,’ he justified to himself, as he packed his headset.

Swan feathers and tutus, light and airy in the blue sky, innocently hid the angry grey turbulence which brewed just beyond. As if a frustrated artist had wielded her paintbrush haphazardly, dabbing and streaking the sky with violence, the storm fermented far to the west, clandestinely challenging the blue sky.

‘It’s just a quick trip to the coast. I’ll be back by 5. Saves hours of driving.’ He kissed me goodbye, same as any morning.

 In winter, the clouds cannot hold themselves up and fall silently to the ground. Some days it is porridge thick; other days, so light that a halo of sun glows through, silhouetting the trees in a hazy shroud. People grumble, complaining about the fog, cursing the coveting blanket that surrounds us. But it is these mornings I choose to go out, walking amongst the mist along the country roads, claiming the fog as my own in the same way the Scottish claim the ‘mist in the Glen’. I embrace it, as it embraces me.

 He rang the airfield where he planned to land. ‘It’s clear. Just a little bit of drizzle,’ they said. His instincts should have told him to be wary. Drizzle does not fall out of blue sky.

 I am fascinated how I cannot see further than a hundred metres around myself, but as I draw closer to something, it gradually becomes visible until it is part of my landscape. Meanwhile, behind me, what I have passed by is enshrouded in mist. A metaphor for life - the future stands before us,  we know not what it holds until we get close enough to it, while behind us, our past is soon lost in the fading mists of memory.

 He had been flying for years. Flying was in his genes, in his blood.  He was a cautious man, a good pilot. Who knows what else was on his mind, that influenced his decision making that day? And what, now, did it matter, anyway?

 I loved the way the clouds could change my perspective of the mountain, daily. Once I took photos of it at the same time each day for a month. Some days the mountain lay long and languid as a sleeping goddess on the landscape, picture book fluffy clouds dotted around like in a child’s painting. Other days the mountain had completely disappeared, covered in cloud as if a blanket had been hung before it. If you did not know the area, you would never believe there was a whole mountain range just there, just beyond the green grass and kahikatea trees in the foreground. But my favourite scene was when the clouds would intersperse themselves between the peaks and valleys of the mountain, changing the two dimensional scene to a series of foothills and furrows, closer crags and more distant ridges. Suddenly the mountain range became visible in three indomitable dimensions, with the depth and perspective an artist would have appreciated.

 Who would choose the job of a weather forecaster? How can they ever know what might blow in from the coast, island country that we are. It changes so quickly. Most days it doesn’t matter at all, if you get caught in an unexpected shower or happen to wear a layer too many on a warmer than expected day. But some days, it can be life changing.

This day, the sun peeked through the uncertain clouds, some high, some low, some racing through the sky on a fervent wind, while above lurked the greyer, more solid clouds, in no hurry to go anywhere. Knees damp on the grass, my mind drifts with them as I dig, turn, work the soil, planting bulbs. There is something elemental about the smell of freshly turned earth. Perhaps it is our soul responding to the reminder that therein lies the origin of our body - dust to dust, ashes to ashes.

The small aircraft had set out below the bank of high cloud, flying uneventfully across the plains. Tufts of light fairy-cloud kept him company as he watched the road twist and turn below. There is such a feeling of freedom, defying gravity and several other laws of physics, soaring above the intricacies of the everyday, bringing all his senses alive.

The lifelessly dry, flaky-skinned bulbs are placed in the damp soil, hope buried for the spring, when the tulips and daffodils would fill the air with their carefree scent, at the end of what would be a bleak, lonely winter.

The flat land soon gave way to foothills, before he entered the valley with walls of green native bush on either side. Pockets of blue above the distant range hinted at promise and possibility. As he flew further into the valley, the land rose up to meet him from below and the hillsides grew closer. Gradually, the clouds drew in from above, the range ahead became grey. The small plane circled lower and lower, searching for a clear patch between the clouds.

The first rain fell fat and cold, not just droplets but spoonfuls of water, in riverlets down my neck, sending me inside. Dirt still clumped beneath my nails, I put the kettle on. Steam formed clouds of its own, trickling down the glass as it hit the inside of the window, matching those on the outside pane. Quietly, I sat drinking tea, reading the paper, having a perfectly pleasant morning, oblivious to what was just out of sight, just beyond the fog that was yet to clear.

There were no clear patches, anymore. White, fluffy vapour had crept in from all sides, called to the valley floor as the temperature had dropped. The plane circled frantically, like a fly in a trap. Up or down were the only choices.

The water that fell freely, innocently, outside, had sent me indoors to shelter. Yet once inside, I sought its sustenance. Water. One could float on it or drown in it. An element, both vital and lethal, changing form and potency at whim, it seemed.

'Down’ were trees, rocks, rivers. ‘Up’ were clouds, storm, rain, and eventually blue sky. While the earth may be overcast, always, above the cloud, was sunshine and infinite blue sky. It was the best of a bad choice.

I lit the fire. It was not particularly cold, but a fire helped dry out the air, clear the dampness that had surrounded the house as the clouds closed in. The wood was solid and fragrant, a hint of the pine tree it once was, still clinging to it. The match struck immediately. I watched the flames lick and flicker at the paper and tinder dry pinecones. Fire- beautiful, innocent, innocuous - when contained. Deadly, if let loose. Vital, yet lethal. I shut the door to the fire box firmly.

‘Up’ were also the valley walls. Trees, rocks, streams tumbling into cascading waterfalls to the valley floor far below.   Visual Flight Rulebook and all training cast aside, ‘up’ he went, the embracing, encompassing clouds forbidding him from seeing the future, until it was upon him. And in that instant, there was nothing he could do to change it.

Five o’clock came and went. ‘No news is good news,’ I told myself, trying not to watch the clock. And I would be proven right. There would be no news that was good news, that night.

There was no body to recover. The plane had burst into flames, a scorch mark on the hillside his epitaph.  He had always said he wanted to be cremated. His body turned to vapour, his DNA intermingling with the beautiful, turbulent clouds that blew from the west, bringing rain inland.

The young officer had clearly not had experience at this before. This was a small town, it didn’t happen very often. It was certainly the first time in his short career. I almost felt sorry for him, wanted to comfort him in his awkward task. I already knew, of course. There could be no other possibilities. I had sensed him in the rain clouds as I breathed in their density.

There would be just a small article in tomorrow’s paper. Two lines, under the headline ‘Light Plane Crash’.  His name, in black ink on white newsprint. 

People drew in, like clouds, around me, encircling me, enshrouding me, their sympathy a stifling blanket which threatened to suffocate me. The vaporous clouds had turned to liquid and I was drowning in a sea of grief, only some of it mine. Why do people bring food, food and more food, when sadness fills the stomach with its dull ache, allowing nothing else to enter?

I escape from the silent din made by these friendly strangers in my house and walk out, into the cool refreshing mist that the evening has brought. The worst of the storm has blown over, and the stars begin to dare show their faces and between the drifting clouds.

Light. If it were not for the darkness, we would never see the stars, even though they are always there. Deep within, I know this night will pass, the morning will shine again tomorrow. There will be clouds, there will be rain, there will be fire and water and light, but for now, I let the last of the storm clouds that took him wrap themselves around me, as his arms would have that night, and I sink into their embrace for one last time.

 

Japan - Warning Holiday snaps!

Recently I ticked one of my dreams off my bucket list- to take my family to Japan, where I have lived for two years. The first time was 30 years ago (do the maths!) as a Rotary Exchange student, in a lovely town called Tokamachi (which means '10-day town' as they had a market there on the 10th of every month, which I thought was so cool until I realised nearby was a 6-day town, a 4-day town....)

Tokamachi is in 'yukiguni' (snow country) and as such, holds an amazing snow festival every year as a way to 'make friends with the snow', a good move since they have 3 - 4 metres of it for four or five months every year. There were snow statues all around town, and the main event was a concert of some famous Japanese singers we'd never heard of, singing here:


Main Stage of the snow festival

Hanabi

Fireworks in Japanese is 'hanabi' - literally 'flower fire'. (Wouldn't it be cool to make up new words in a language?) btw, you can see the size of the ship now, with the kimono clad models, unknown famous singers and lines of red tracksuit wearing school students (it was held on their school sports grounds, after all). Note the snow covered Christmas trees in the background- sooo pretty I want to weep!



Some of the snow sculptures around town

We saw snow monkeys who keep warm in natural hotpools in the snow

and had a go at tea ceremony at the Buddhist temple where I used to learn 'ocha' (tea) and 'ohana' (flower arranging - ikebana)

We also went on to a gorgeous little alpine village called Nozawa Onsen for some fantastic powder skiing. Onsen is the Japanese word for hot pool, rather like the geothermal hotpools we have in Rotorua, NZ. However, in Japan,onsen are for bathing, not swimming, the difference being (much to my children's digust) one does not wear anything in the water! Needless to say, they refused to join me.

 

Our last night in Nozawa left me with a strong impression, which epitomised everything I love about Japan (excluding the food).
It led to this short story:
 

Onsen^* on a snowy night

(* Japanese style natural hotpool)

 

The flakes fall thick and fast, white jewels in the darkness, melting into the wet black tar or disappearing into the mounds that have built up on what must have once been footpaths. The streetlights glisten with daggers of ice dripping from the glass shades, the snowflakes catching their glow for a final visible moment. All along the roadsides, candles light up the snowy path, flickering in their decorated paper surrounds, welcoming, luring, encouraging, in the cold. The faint smell of sulphur lures me on as I study the neon signs, decoding the scripted characters until I spot one with ‘lady’ in handwritten English under the Japanese symbol for ‘woman’.

 

Sliding the door to one side, the bathhouse curtain flutters around my head as I enter the steamy room. At first I go the wrong way, then follow the lead as I see half-naked women along the opposite wall, their clothes and towels piled in baskets arranged cubby holes. Shoes stand silently at attention on the wooden slatted walkway in the changing area. The women smile and nod in welcome, giggling behind their hands, at the sight of a foreign woman joining them in their daily ritual.

 

I crouch at the pool edge, shivering as the bone-chilling snow permeates the air.  The bare wooden walls do little to insulate against the stark cold that three metres of snow outside bestows. Using the small plastic basins provided, I throw mercifully warm water over myself, washing modestly as other women chat around me. A child beside her mother has almost finished dressing in fleecy pyjamas with blue and purple hearts. She stares at me un-self-consciously, wary of the white skin, the blonde hair and the green eyes smiling back at her. An overcoat protects her from the snow as she returns to her gas-warmed house and waiting futon.

 One woman, on her knees at the pool edge, washes her hair profusely. Another merrily soaps herself in public, despite her mutilated right breast. The mood is casual, friendly, cordial. The women come daily, catching up on gossip and news as they wash their bodies and wash away their day. They know each others’ families, their homes, their jobs, their worries, their stories. Problems are aired as are their bodies, the walls protecting their confidences as well as their privacy.

 Climbing into the scalding water to soak, I find it hard to equate the modest, shy people I see each day on the street, in the shops, at the convenience store, with these women here, happily washing together. The sulphur smell is almost intoxicating as I watch the water trickling in through a bamboo pipe. I let my arms and legs float, weightless, not daring to move, for every movement creates a burning sensation on my skin, as it turns to bright pig-pink. The women beside me giggle, reciting ‘atsui, atsui, atsui’ under their breath, as if admitting how hot it is will somehow make it more bearable. I feel relieved that they too feel the heat, and that it is not just my white gaijin body that is not used to the searing water. I breathe deeply, lying back, my head supported by the cold stone edge of the pool. “Ichi-go, ichi-e” I think. This moment called ‘now’ will not return, and so I treasure it.

 

Dried and reclad, encased in a down jacket, I trudge home back through the falling snow to our Japanese Inn, each snowflake living its moment as it falls to the ground.  In that falling, it is doing its living, whether anyone is there to see it or not. Toes pulsating with warmth, I melt the snow with my leather-clad footsteps, which are promptly re-covered in soft petals of snow. Somehow, deep in my warmed-up bones, I know I will be back.