Wishin' and Hopin'

I've decided this is what I want for my birthday next year:



I've wanted a penny farthing for years. I've wanted this one in particular ever since I found the website back in 2005. I think, for my 30th birthday, I can splurge and buy myself something massive and pointless.

I hereby forgo any other birthday presents in favour of donations to the penny farthing cause.

A Hell of a Good Man...

I once had a very disturbing conversation with a young woman at my old church. She was a few years younger than me (I expect she still is), and one of those friendly acquaintances you tend to pick up who aren't exactly BFFs, but you'd happily have lunch with them or invite them to your birthday party.

Anyway, in the course of the conversation she worked out that I was single, at which point she immediately offered to set me up with a guy she knew.

Now, I had, on previous occasions, met the fellow in question, and I had found him to be the kind of person you nod to, before turning to talk to someone you actually like. I wouldn't actively avoid him, but five minutes of polite conversation would be about as much as either of us would really get out of the other before completely exhausting our reason for being in the same room.

I thought it was an awfully strange suggestion on her part, as she would surely know me well enough to know I wouldn't get along well with him.

I politely told her I wasn't interested, and then attempted to change the subject. Not to be deterred, she immediately suggested another guy - one even less suited to me than the first. In doing so, she also made it clear that her main criteria for attempting to make the match was the fact that "he's single".

Yes, that was her sole consideration.

Somehow, in her universe, the idea of finding someone attractive, interesting or sympathetic (in the older sense of the word) had no relevance. It didn't matter if you shared no interests, had wildly differing opinions on most things and didn't find each other appealing in the least. You're single, he's single, what's the problem?

I was on the verge of explaining to her that there was a little more involved in finding a "match" than just grabbing the nearest available man on offer, but one look at her face told me it would be a waste of time. She was a "simple" girl - in that she was naive and uncomplicated - and it was easy to see she was like that because she wouldn't understand such complexities, even if she could.

Besides, it was an attitude that was somewhat endemic among the "youth" in that church: Better to have someone than no one at all.

At least, that's how I saw it, being outside the "intense set". I don't think I was too far wrong, given that at least four marriages in that set never made it past two years. That was one of the reasons why I don't go to that church any more. I didn't think the youth had the healthiest approach to life, and I didn't think the "mature adults" were paying enough attention, or making the effort to try to steer them right. But, that's another story.

It was sometime later that I bought a Circe Link CD "Moody Girl", including the song "Hell of a Good Man", which seemed a much healthier way of looking at the whole "boy-meets-girl" scenario, and I wished I could ram it in the ears of some of my young friends at that church:

It takes a hell of a good man/ to be better than/ no man at all...

It's something I think applies to a lot of things in life: Don't settle for something that isn't what you want just because you haven't found what you want yet.

And that's my profound thought for today.

Awesome

There are so many, many reasons why this is awesome:

http://wondermark.com/546/

I think you have to be a certain shade of geek to really appreciate the full awesomeness, though.

The dying days of August

The dying days of August usher in the return of white-hot sunshine to a brown land, dried out by winter and starting to cry out for the summer rains.

The humidity has not yet crept in, and these last days of "Winter" contain a strange, almost unearthly pleasure in the middle of the day. The sun reaches its zenith and hovers there between the hours of eleven and two, and the air practically vibrates with an indefinable "zing".

You feel somehow energised and soporific at the same time - as if you really should lie down in the shade, but secretly suspect you'd just hover a couple of feet off the ground if you tried. Watching a butterfly busy itself about the citrus trees and passionfruit vines is an almost out-of-body experience.

It's still the "dry season", but Winter, such as it is, is well and truly gone. The slight chill that was in the air has fled south, and the breeze now blows a warm, dry, comforting breath across the land. For the rest of the year the breeze will be somewhere between warm and hot. As we get closer to Summer, the humidity will leach back into the days and this warm breeze will begin to feel weighed down with moisture.

Right now, though, in the dying days of August, there's a lightness to the air. The warmth seems like a blessing of sorts, and you can almost hear the beach calling...

Oh, sister...

When I was a teenager - and even into my early twenties - all the other girls at school and the church youth group, etc, wanted to meet the man of their dreams, get married and have kids. Sure, some of them also wanted to become doctors or rocket scientists in the middle of all that, but their main life-goals involved marriage and children.

Me? I wanted to be a nun.

No, I'm not kidding, although most people assume I am when I mention this. And it had nothing to do with the Sound of Music or Sister Act (although I firmly believe that my life is a musical, so please excuse me while I burst into song...)

I honestly found the idea of a life devoted to study, contemplation and prayer - augmented by some works of mercy and perhaps the growing of vegetables - highly appealing. I sort of pictured myself travelling the world in my youth, then settling down to be a Carmelite.

There was a time when the only reason I didn't take more definite steps in that direction was the fact that I wasn't Catholic and, being thoroughly entrenched in the Pentecostal way of doing business, had no intention of pretending I was (thus we have one of the great ironies of my life - I was too devoutly religious to become a nun). If, at the time, I had been told of a religious order that didn't consider Catholicism to be an entry requirement, I might be in a completely different place right now.

There are probably a few people out there having "Aha!" moments as an aspect of my character falls into place. Yes, that's right, ladies and gentlemen - I'm the girl who wanted to be a nun who grew up to become a librarian.

I wish I had some sweeping romantic story for why I never became a nun, but I don't. Sure, when I went to university I met one or two young men I found somewhat "distracting"... But nothing that you might call a "Captain von Trapp situation" ever developed.

I didn't end up becoming a nun because I just didn't. Mind you, there's still time - although these days I'm probably more likely to become a Vicar or Rector (yep, still not Catholic - although leaning heavily towards Anglican).

I think the main reason why I didn't become a nun was the fact that I wasn't interested in settling down to be anything, really. I liked the idea of endless possibilities stretched out before me like a field of wild-flowers in the wide open plains of existence.

I still do, really. I love the job I have at the moment, but I don't intend to stay here for long. Catch me in five years time and I might be selling pretzels from a cart in Berlin, for all I know.

Heck, for all I know, I may yet end up doing the marriage and children thing. That would make my mother happy. It just doesn't seem all that likely at present due to the fact that a)I spent my youth wanting to be a nun, so I didn't exactly pick up any skills in the boy-meets-girl department, b)I can't find nobody as crazy as me, and c)I'm not really looking. But who knows where the wind may blow?

I do know one thing for sure: I will probably burst into song. Maybe even a spontaneous dance routine. If I do, just join in - it's easier that way.

Sorry, what?

Ever had one of those days when you can't quite remember what you were doing five minutes ago. Or what you're supposed to be doing now?

You know, you open a webpage to... do... something... ...

Or you pick up a pen and then can't remember why?

My whole week's been like that.

Coffee doesn't seem to help.

Of Girls and Goats and Wars

Some weeks back I made a comment on one of the blogs I read. The blog post was looking at the new monument in Tallinn commemorating the Estonian War of Independence. For those of you who don't know, the monument looks like this:




It's designed to look like the Estonian Cross of Liberty, which is one of the highest military honours in the short history of the country of Estonia. However, it also looks suspiciously like other things involving iron crosses. Most of those things weren't so auspicious.

The discussion in the comments had been playing out the debate over whether or not the monument was actually perceived as representing a good thing. Did it look too much like symbols used by the "bad guys" in various other wars?

As part of my "two bits", I restated my belief that the best monuments look like figures - they're easy to anthropomorphise and more interesting to look at. I included the following paragraph:

Blokes riding horses and wielding weapons are always good value, but they've been over used. One day I'd love to see a freedom monument or a victory statue that involves a young girl riding a goat. Whilst making a daisy chain. If that doesn't symbolise freedom, I don't know what does.

Which tickled the fancy of a couple of other commenters, but raised the semi-serious ire of one, who had this to say:

This a monument for a war. War is not a feminine thing! Young girl riding on goat, playing with flowers?? I think the men who were engaged in battle would turn over in their grave, if that was how we commemorated their fight!

Which, in turn, prompted another player to add:

This a monument for a war. War is not a feminine thing! There should be a young man riding on goat, playing with flowers.

Personally, I found the whole exchange hilarious, but I'd like to put forward the following question:

Sure, war is normally an exercise in men doing violent things... but why do they do it? Forget the politics that usually lies behind the war, why do young men - fathers, farmers and the boy you went to school with - go to war? Especially a "War of Independence?" Is it to dress in a uniform, wave around a weapon and feel masculine?

Well, maybe. They're boys, after all. Still, I can't shake the feeling most grandfathers who fought in a War of Independence did it so they could see their children and grandchildren lolling about in the sun without a care in the world - enjoying a peaceful childhood in a free country. So a little girl riding a goat and playing with flowers seems like a perfectly apt monument to such a war. A celebration of what was worth fighting for.

I doubt any war hero worth his salt would "turn over in his grave" for such a thing. More likely, they would feel glad it was all worth it.