Tangent: Transition

This is my contribution for Monday Artday: Transition.

All the stages of life flit by so rapidly we hardly notice them.

Value each and every moment, each and every day, each and every new experience, for all too soon it's gone.

Tangent: Precious Life

This is the scan of my friend's baby.
It is a reminder of how precious life is.
At 22 weeks pregnant, this new person is already 'half-cooked'.....waiting to enter our world and become a wonderful human being.
No matter what scientists do, attempting cloning etc etc....no matter how modern technology keeps evolving, this is still the most miraculous creation of all kind.
(Of course, I couldn't decipher which blob was the eye, nose, kneee or elbow.)

I drew this while on holiday, as 'family' and 'motherhood' was very much on my mind.

If you think of an ocean liner, consider fathers to be the rudder and mothers to be the engine.

To a woman, her family and motherhood are like the whole 'body' while her career and friends are like the 'tail'.

To a man, his life and career and having fun are like the 'body' while his family is like the 'tail'.

Treasure that little baby, Jaimie, nestling inside your womb, protected under your arms, and close to your heart, as that's where he/she will always stay till the day you die.

Fifty- seven: Let's talk

I'd like us three to get together and really talk.
It's time we did.

Tangent: Beautiful Hands

I adore beautiful hands. These are some in my collection. A small wooden hand with moving digits, and a smooth surface. Interesting.

' Hands' (Renoir) - got this painting after having 2 operations for 'carpal tunnel syndrome' and still struggling with the pain.

This tapestry ('The Age of Innocence') was done by my late mother. Although the whole picture is remarkable, the hands are best.

This painting was done by my ex father- in- law, now deceased, a man I absolutely adored from the moment I met him, a gentle, kind, honourable man - the hands are wonderful.

Being handsome, clever or wealthy doesn't overwhelm me, but well -kept, fine, clean- above all- clean -hands really do impress me.

Seven: Relish my 'joie de vivre'

''You are a great example of 'joie de vivre'.'' This was the inscription in a book you gave me in December 1991. I had not considered this to be so until that point, but instinctively I knew you were right.


Previously I had always believed it was my inimitable Aquarianness that defined who I was. I knew that I was bursting with an extreme emotion needing to get out, and whenever life kicked me in the shins, I would somehow get up again and stagger on using this inner 'something', but having no name for it. All my life I knew I was different and didn't fit in with the rest of my clan.

When I was about 5 or 6 I woke my brother up in the middle of the night and took him outside to sit on the 'stoep' (porch) to look at the moon. My mother woke up and came looking for us and there we were, oblivious to all around us. I remember sitting on that step with my hand carelessly draped round my little brother's shoulders, and I remember her fury.

This fury was going to be unleashed upon me many times in the next dozen years. I took my brother to 'town' which was about 10 blocks from our house, and was discovered by my very stern, very angry mother, who then gave me a thrashing right there and then to my utter embarrassment of course. Why couldn't she understand my curiosity, my thirst for life, my need to be me?

I was always either acting and singing or playing 'school school' with the neighbourhood kids. I would strut up and down in our makeshift classroom wielding my big stick and admonishing them much as my own mother had admonished me.

My best friends, Priscilla (Cilla) and Cynthia (Cinny) lived round the corner and we were always in each other's homes. One very hot afternoon we were carrying some eggs from my house to theirs to bake a cake (aged about 13) when one of the eggs fell out of the bowl and landed on the sandy path. We started laughing, when along came three boys on their bikes. The first one asked us 'what are you doing?' and I answered without a moment's hesitation and a straight face, 'frying an egg'. This only made us laugh louder and longer.

I loved and still do love anything unusual. When I get a present I am more interested in the wrapping than the actual gift. When I buy something I am more interested in what I didn't buy than what I did buy. And through all the many many tears that life has cost me, I have always managed to 'pick myself up, dust myself off and start all over again.'

So, thank you for that particular inscription in my book and I promise I will continue to relish that 'joie de vivre'.