Waking up early on Saturday to the sound of rain pouring out of the sky and window shutters smashing against each other in both the bathroom and the kitchen, teamed with what sounded like satellite dishes catapulting off roof tops, I staggered around the flat crashing into pot plants, madly trying to find the door wedges which I tend to slam between the aforementioned windows and their ledges when they crash in the wind.
Of course all of the door wedges have recently traveled to the same place as probably odd socks and the lids to Tupperware containers travel together to in order to make their human custodians furious.
“Where are you all?” I mumbled before going back to bed as another ‘satellite dish flying off a rooftop’ type object smashed somewhere in the distance.
Once the sun came up momentarily, before the sky opened and more rain began to fall, I made the decision to spend the day at home at a home office desk fashioned out of my dining room table, having had visions of me traipsing to the office with my computer bag in one hand filling with water, and my basket in the other hand also filling with water, and I barely left that table for the entire weekend.
I have to say I rather enjoyed it. To do lists be gone, I thought as I wrote a Monday morning to do list under a Sunday morning to do list just before lights out on Saturday night. There is nothing I love more than striking tasks off a list and then adding more tasks after I’ve done them, only to strike them off, too.
Overnight on Saturday as Sunday edged its way forward, jockeying itself into prime position of a new day, the clocks went back an hour in Morocco in preparation for Ramadan which is set to begin on either Monday or Tuesday, all depending on when a man sights the Ramadan moon in a land far away and then the rest of the world follows suit. I believe it might be Tuesday in Morocco. I therefore woke an hour early for hot water bottle refill duty on Sunday morning, with what is normally a 5am freezing cold, wobbly lump on my foot wake up call, was 4am on Sunday, and I actually didn’t know what to do with myself with at least four hours to spare until the sun came up and the rain was forecast to fall again.
As a child, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was a favourite book of mine, and I remember savouring each page as a probably eight year old in our wonderful old house, in my wonderful old bedroom which had a porcelain service bell built into the wall beside my bed that I’d press from time to time hoping one day someone would appear from a Far Away Tree (another childhood favourite), which of course they didn’t because the wiring had long been detached, and in 1980’s Australia, service bells weren’t really a thing – particularly not for able bodied children reading books late into the night.
Back to Charlie. I decided at the beginning of last week, scrolling through my audio books on my ancient iPad, slightly tired from night after night of the BBC’s ‘crashing waves nighttime music for those who want to go to sleep’ that I’d listen to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – there is nothing like reading (or listening to) childhood favourites as an adult and reading between the lines into, often grim, hidden meanings that can be lost on the imagination of a child.
On Sunday morning, wide awake and ready to start the day in the pitch dark, I finished Chapter Thirty where Charlie is gifted the whole entire chocolate factory from the madness of a glass elevator whooshing through the sky. Not without Grandpa Joe, Grandma Josephine, Grandpa George and Grandma Georgina all jammed inside in their huge bed, along with Willy Wonka and Ma and Pa after ricocheting through the roof of their house and then out again into the sky. Not dissimilar in sound, I suppose, to the noises I’ve been hearing in the recent crashing and banging of the windows during the night with the arrival of much needed rain over North Africa.
Once the book had finished at the end of Chapter Thirty, BBC Radio 4 took over and there was endless talk of the origins of ‘Mothering Sunday.’ Almost turning it off, ‘Sunday Morning Church Hour’ is a bit much really, I decided to keep listening, half dreaming of chocolate waterfalls, Oompa Loompa’s and turning into a blueberry, and the other half of me, quite alert.
It is easy to forget, particularly as the West becomes more and more secular, that the origins of Mothering Sunday go right back to the Middle Ages, where on Laetare Sunday, the fourth Sunday in Lent, Christians historically visited their ‘Mother Church,’ the church in which they received the sacrament of Baptism. In 1913, probably about the same time the service bell was installed beside my childhood bed, an Englishwoman named Constance Adelaide Smith revived it’s ‘modern’ observance – advocating for Mothering Sunday as a day for recognising Mother Church, ‘mothers of earthly homes’, Mary, mother of Jesus, and Mother Nature, basing her work on medieval traditions, which most likely saw the day – naturally, as the world modernised – evolve into a day all about mothers.
Cue Hallmark cards, bunches of flowers and breakfast in bed.
On Sunday morning, as ‘church hour’ on the BBC turned into conversation hour, the chat turned to what has now become ‘Mother’s Day’ a day far removed from it’s origins, but in a topic that had me thinking – as the sun finally began to rise and it was late enough to slide into slippers for good and begin to prepare coffee – about the traditions of Lent and the month of Ramadan, which as mentioned, is set to begin this week.
So much of what we have been taught, what we believe and what forms our opinions and ultimately, who we are, revolves around returning to places that centre us, and the lessons we learn in these places as a young child. There are many variations on this and it all, I suppose, depends what each individual believes in, but I have to say, I quite enjoyed going back to the Olden Days while listening to Sunday morning radio and being reminded of a rather wonderful tradition and how it has evolved. Most particularly, for the similarities it has on life as we know it, wherever we may be. The mind is so important, and to keep it stimulated, even more so.
I read recently that by handing a bored child a phone, we steal their boredom from them. As a result, we are raising a generation of writers who will never start writing, artists who will never start doodling, chefs who will never make a mess of the kitchen, athletes who will never kick a ball against the wall, and musicians who will never pick up their aunt’s guitar and start strumming – someone named Glennon Doyle wrote this and funnily enough, I read it on my iPhone.
As Sunday unfolded and I continued to listen to the radio at my makeshift dining room desk, striking off jobs on the to do list, I found myself by the kettle at one point making my 600th cup of green tea for the day, and I was suddenly deep in the kitchen cupboard clearing out rice paper from when I thought I’d make sushi, boxes of chocolates I’ve been gifted but never eaten, decaffeinated coffee that I’ve never opened, packets of Carrs Water Crackers opened but unfinished, all with expiry dates of 2023. As I searched for Tupperware containers to store all of these items in ‘just in case’ I realised that none of the Tupperware containers had lids, and that the year is in fact, 2024.
And just like that, things were there, and there, and there, all being piled into a big shopping bag and then onto the street. Whether it be a list of things one thinks one can never achieve, a topic we may not understand or are afraid of not understanding, the simplest thing such as reading a book, or listening to the radio, or having a conversation away from our comfort zone, these things ultimately inspire all sorts of actions and changes in our behaviour. As can cleaning out the kitchen cupboard when you’ve almost over contemplated in thought, and overcompensated with a to do list – and, you have a blog to write.
Next stop, Ramadan – a time each year where I learn so much, and while you’d be hard pressed to find me fasting full time, it is a time of year where I slow down on the consumption of so many things while the majority of people I work and interact with each day, complete the month ‘to the line’ in honour of a tradition so important and barely changed.
And the backbone of this month ahead, of fast, the preparation of Iftar (the meal that breaks the fast) caring for others and goodwill? Traditionally and in general, it is mothers, aunts, sisters and women.