B is for Bhala
Bhala is write in Zulu and good or nice in Hindi. My husband came up with the name as, evidently, he thinks I am a good writer. I keep trying to tell him that, bar the content of this site, a schoolgirl could write it (and in certain countries where the benefits of having a child outweigh the benefits of finishing school, the content wouldn’t be an issue either). Enough said, this is my ‘nice writing’.
Penelope van Maasdyk took up boxing and blogging when she became a mother … both mediums of stress release, a hard hitting and honest way of dealing with motherhood. Not for the faint-hearted, this blog will not leave you without a reaction (violent or otherwise) so, if you have an opinion of your own, please comment and begin that ripple effect we all love about the wwweb.
For an honest take on travel (and more specifically, backpacking) read her recently published novel, never go trekking … and other stories.
Recently
- 19.08 Welcome to my Flower Chamber
- 12.08 Love on the merry-go-round
- 11.08 Kick the dog
- 07.08 Life comes with no guarantees
- 06.08 Person to person
- 05.08 Scathing sceptic
- 04.08 never underestimate those Little Differences
- 01.08 Relationships left adrift
- 17.06 A Palindrome
- 11.06 From Self-loathing to Self-righteous
Monthly Archives
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- June 2008 (4)
- May 2008 (1)
- April 2008 (2)
- February 2008 (15)
- November 2007 (2)
- October 2007 (4)
- September 2007 (2)
- August 2007 (8)
- June 2007 (12)
- May 2007 (13)
Welcome to my Flower Chamber
There is a matriarchal tribe in China called the Masuo. They don’t believe in marriage and having babies in a relationship. They believe in flower chambers and love and desire. These women chose who gets invited to their flower chambers and who will give them their baby seed. They raise their children with the males in their immediate families and there is no need to either settle or settle down with
anyone for any indefinite amount of time.
If I wasn’t before, I am now totally into cultural diversity. What a healthy outlook. Why limit yourself and stunt your spiritual growth by having to constantly work around the needs of another. Selfish, perhaps, but definitely healthy. Simple rules, simple pleasures and realistic expectations.
I have waited a long time for things in our relationship to get back to normal post baby. But, when normal has shifted, how long does one have to wait to find it again. When everything has changed, how does one ever go back to being the same?
Perhaps our individual priorities have shifted in such a way that we will never be the same individually and, therefore, never the same together.
Love on the merry-go-round
“I’d have more children if I didn’t have a husband”, says a mother of four.
This may be because there is just not enough love to go around … after all, when you run out of love … Who do you love more? The man you have been with—seemingly for an eternity—who has ‘gotten used to you’ or the child who has just rocked up in your life and ‘needs you more than you will ever know’.
This tiny little human who has stolen its mother’s every waking moment, and every last drop of effort and energy usurps your husband’s position and deprives him of a little bit of your love.
It transpires that something’s gotta give when there just ain’t enough love to go around. In my case, the fairground attraction ended when my husband, used to a high dose of merry-go-round, had to make do with the swings. Back and forth didn’t do it for him; he went tummy-butterfly cold turkey and ditched the fair completely.
Aaaaanyway, fair or not, he suffered without his full dose, dished out a fair amount of rejection and lost a fair amount of passion in the deal. The baby ended up getting all the love for a while … and the husband is only just managing to function on his reduced dosage.
Kick the dog
Almost three years later I still haven’t gotten used to being pulled in so many directions. I like to think that mothers of more than one child treat all their children as one collective rather than separate people pulling her in different directions … mainly, I think, because I can’t even imagine having to deal with another human being wanting my attention.
And then the dog starts whining because he wants a walk and all I can think of doing is kicking the damn animal over the garden fence.
