Things to remember our mothers by.

I love Marchmont Street in Bloomsbury, it's one of my favourite streets in London. It's like a village high street but in the middle of the city.
I have often walked over an art installation embedded in the pavement on Marchmont Street, consisting of little tokens from the Foundling museum,..but I only recently stopped to look properly and photograph each one.
Here are some of them:

These tokens were given by mothers who through hardship, had to give their children away to be looked after by the Foundling Hospital. They were given in order for each mother to identify and collect her child in the future, if she was able, though this rarely happened. Most times, the tokens simply ended up as things for the children to remember their mothers by.  I have visited the museum which houses many more of these tokens, and I was so moved and struck by the simplicity of each item, probably something near and to hand. It felt like these tokens communicated love, a mother's love, even in the midst of unimaginable heartache.

Tokens, little things that represent love, are so important, even in the undramatic everyday living. What things can we use to communicate love? I don't mean grand gestures, I mean in the little things. Sometimes, (if I am organised and think ahead), I put a little 'love token' in my daughters' lunchboxes. A little heart shaped cookie with a little note attached with pretty ribbon, telling them how much I love them and how wonderful they are. I like to think that they have a moment in the middle of the school day to be reminded that they are loved and precious to someone.

Writing this made me think of my own mother and the things that remind me of her. Thankfully she is still very much with us and such a blessing and I am grateful for her everyday. But I write this also with the knowledge that some of my dear friends have lost their mothers and it is still so painful...They are left now with precious memories, love tokens that their mothers left them.
 My mum's cooking will be central in my memories of her, particularly her Jellof rice, which I have never been able to recreate in the same way, also her groundnut stew, which is still talked about by my hubby's family, for whom she cooked it. More recently, my mum comes over to mine once a week to teach my girls piano and we have lunch together before they get in from school. 
Simple meals.. the simple things that communicate love...

This meal of bread and vegetables brings to mind one of my favourite proverbs. 

"Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a fatted calf with hatred".

The Healing Power of Cake.

My 11 year old daughter has just started secondary school and each day, with a huge amount of trepidation on my part, she takes the bus on her own to school. So I was actually quite relieved when she was off school a couple of days ago with a sore throat and temperature as this was an opportunity to have her at home all day and not have to worry about a thing, because rather selfishly perhaps, I still need to feel like she's my little girl who needs her Mummy.
So as I was making her favourite cold remedy hot drink with freshly squeezed lemon, grated ginger and loads of honey, I thought it would be a great idea to put all of those ingredients into a cake. What could be better than having a sweet treat and also feeling like it's doing you some good at the same time.

The cakes turned out really well. I decided on heart shaped mini cakes, because when you're feeling unwell, not only do you need a healing treat, you also need to know that you are loved.

Here is the recipe: (I decided on a basic sponge recipe, but substituted some of the sugar with honey, and added the fresh lemon and grated ginger also.)
8 oz butter
4 oz caster sugar
2 or 3 tablespoons of honey( depending on how sweet you like things..)
4 eggs
Juice and zest of one and a half lemons (or one large lemon perhaps)
Fresh ginger (about thumbsize), peeled and grated. (you could use a bit more than that if you like a really strong ginger hit.)
One teaspoon ground ginger
8 oz self-raising flour. (maybe you could add half a teaspoon of baking powder also, because my cakes didn't really rise that well.)

Well I guess as for instructions, just mix the whole lot together, in the way that you would for any other cake, and stick it in the oven, in a cake tin, or individual ones, and bake for about half an hour at 180 degrees C.
For the topping, I used buttercream with lemon juice and zest.

Anyway, here are some more photos of my marvellous and delicious healing cakes. They worked, a little too well I should say, because she was back at school the next day and I'm back to being a nervous wreck!

A Silent Retreat.

In the middle of the mayhem of the summer holidays last month, I decided to take myself off on a silent retreat. I had been meaning to try one for ages but never could find the courage to take the plunge. But it just happened that one day I was feeling exhausted and rather overwhelmed, and the next I found a retreat centre online, was booked in for four days and was on my way!

I had a few things to overcome.. Firstly, I am terrified of driving on the motorway. I don't cope well with driving at speed and I start to panic that I'm going to crash and die, but on this trip it was necessary and easier to drive. Secondly, it was about a week before our family trip to the States and there was still a lot to organise, but I knew that I needed to get away. I guess sometimes you just 'know', and your soul says 'enough, time for time out'.

So off I went, waved off by hubby and the kids, feeling guilty and terrified, clutching the steering wheel tightly and gritting my teeth. After about an hour of shallow breathing on the motorway, I started to relax. I realised that the fact I was actually driving on my own was a good metaphor in itself.  I was actually taking hold of the reins of my life and taking responsibility for my emotional and spiritual health.

And so it began..
I arrived at Glenfall House in Cheltenham, worrying about how I was going to communicate and find my way round, especially as no one was allowed to speak! But I needn't have worried..I was met by the Chaplain, who was also going to be my retreat guide for the duration, and she showed me round, explaining everything in hushed tones.

What struck me straight away was how quiet everything was. Even the sound of the kettle boiling in my room seemed deafening. The few people around seemed to walk everywhere really slowly and I felt instantly like I had permission and space to breathe. There's something really precious about everyone allowing each other the space to just be, to not have to make conversation or be polite. I spent four days and shared all my meals with, a small group of people who I never knew what their names were, or spoke to, but I felt like we had bonded because we all had the same thing in common. We had all chosen to take time out from our lives, to spend time alone, in silence. (I must say though that sitting at a table with a group of people and not talking at all was one of the strangest things I have ever done. There was nothing but the sound of chomping and trying not to make too much eye contact. I frequently had to suppress the urge to giggle which I tend to do when I'm nervous, and I also became disproportionately worried about burping out loud.)

It took me a while to get used to the silence, and I realised that even when I'm alone, I'm seldom still. The voice in my head is constantly jabbering away, and I'm constantly trying to validate every minute by keeping busy. Eventually I started to slow down. I had been instructed by my retreat guide to go on nature walks (according to the teachings of St Ignatius, upon which this silent retreat was based). The gardens and grounds of Glenfall House were stunning, and I started to really enjoy walking slowly around, enjoying the views, and being with myself in an altogether lovelier and more accepting way.

No sooner had I settled into the new rhythm of things, it was time to go home. Back I got into the car, initially driving like a maniac, because after being still for so long, I found it difficult to coordinate myself. On my return, I've realised that everyday life is extremely noisy. We are bombarded with so much stuff, all the time.  It's essential to have a break from it all from time to time, to reconnect with ourselves and to have some rest.  I'll certainly be visiting again, and I really think I'll try to make the silent retreat experience a part of each year. I found it very liberating and although very hard to do at times, really really worthwhile.

Journalings...

Art journaling... Haven't done it for a while, but have begun again.. I like it!

It's a great way of becoming unstuck with creativity and in all sorts of other ways. It's a great way of playing with paint, glue, paper cut outs and all the other things that kids love. It's also nice to know that there is no right or wrong, because the finished product is whatever you want it to be on any given day.

My oldest daughter turned 11 recently and we've been talking about girly things and coming of age things. I thought it would be nice to work on an art journal with her, something she could look back on when she's all grown. So last Sunday, I sent her to the shops on her own (eek!! her first ever outing on her own!) to choose and purchase a journal that she liked. She came home with a beautiful one covered in butterflies, and we have been creating ever since.  The idea is that she makes pages of her own and I also make pages and add to the journal.

This one is a journal entry I made using a photo of when she was about one and a half, she's so cute!

This is another page I made using a photo of her, paint stencilling and cut out butterflies. I love this one because it really celebrates her personality. She truly is like a butterfly, free spirited and bringing beauty into every life that she touches..

 

Another creative idea I've had, is to have a 'family theme of the month'. We wrote lots of ideas like love, joy, peace, honour, patience, etc, on bits of paper and put them in hat, (a red sparkly one of course). The idea is that each month we pick a theme out of the hat and create art, write, make music, think about, that theme for the whole month. The theme this month is joy, and it's been so wonderful to see the children make time most days to create art. My eight year old daughter made these pictures based on the theme of joy..

I love this picture. My daughter explained that there is a girl (far right of the picture), who has created a world of colour (and butterflies!) around her.

Joyous swirls! I love the simplicity of this one.

For me joy is not the absence of sorrow. It is much deeper than that. As I write this, I have sorrow in my heart , a dear uncle of mine passed away a few days ago, and as a family we feel sad. Yet our theme of the month is Joy.

Perhaps joy and sorrow walk either side of a very fine line.

Much love, and here's to more creativity - joy and journaling! xx

Easter: Chocolate or Change?

So it's the season of new beginnings. The trees flower with the beautiful colours of spring and Christians celebrate the resurrection of Christ. It absurdly also seems to be the season of chocolate in all its forms, chocolate eggs, chocolate bunnies, chocolate nests with chocolate eggs in, and so on. 

Then there's the Easter Bunny. What's that all about? The kids were asking if the Easter Bunny would be visiting and I told them outright that it isn't real. I figured things were complicated enough with trying to keep the Santa myth going for as long as possible.  (Hubby was busted on Christmas Eve because he was too noisy whilst filling the stockings and my eight year old woke up and saw him. But she somehow still believes because 'Santa' wrote her a letter in Norwegian and Daddy doesn't speak Norwegian, so Santa must be real. Thank goodness for google translate!)

So what are we to take from all this? The resurrection, spring blossoming and chocolate?

I really do get overwhelmed sometimes with the details of life, with my perception of everyone's expectations, most often imagined rather than real. I feel like I can't do it all, it's impossible to please everyone all of the time. I need to learn that it's a waste of energy to even try. How can this Easter time give me hope that things can be different? that it's possible to have peace within, secure in the knowledge that I am generally OK just as I am. Of course there's always room for improvement, but there's something beautiful in the realisation that I don't have to prove myself, or earn love and acceptance.

So what can I do? I guess I have a couple of options. The first one could be to stuff my face with chocolate, but I don't think this would help. Too much chocolate makes me feel ill, I get all headachey and very windy, (the less said about that the better!)  So I don't think this would be the friendly or sensible option.

Secondly, I could actually make a decision to change. I've recently started reading a book which I purchased from my local Quaker bookshop called "Crossing the Desert, learning to let go, see clearly and live simply" by Robert J.Wicks. It's about learning from some fourth-century monks and nuns who spent time in the desert; about what they learnt and discovered:

"So, in the desert, an opportunity to gain a new perspective and a unique appreciation for what is truly important is joined by a radically different sense of what relationship, hospitality, and compassion should mean in our lives. Is it any wonder then, that the desert would be an ideal metaphor for the challenging times in life to remind us of the need to let go of all that is incomplete and unnecessary in us?"

Robert J. Wicks.

I often feel like I'm having some sort of desert experience, with lost bearings and an unquenchable thirst for fulfilment. But I think this is because I sometimes forget to measure my life by the things which have actual value, in fact they are invaluable: My beautiful children who bring me untold joy and constantly hold up a mirror to show what is real and precious, my 'Mr Man', the unconditional love of my family and friends, the simple things that make me smile...
Easter for me, is about death and resurrection. I want to put to death the things in me which cause me to stray from the truth of what is really important. I want true sight to be resurrected in me. It's there somewhere, milling about behind my eyes.

So this Easter time, I wish you renewed hope, sharpened vision and an increased lung capacity to breathe the clear air of truth. With very much love, always,
Ayozie xxx

Spring is in the air! ...

So it's that time of year again. When you hear the birds chirp chirping and the days grow slightly longer. As soon as the daffodils and blossoms make their appearance, I get that familiar sensation of feeling restless and with ants in my pants. It's funny, the pile of stuff waiting to be sorted through since Christmas, suddenly seems intolerable and I just have to sort it all out. Spring always feels like a season of new beginnings, and I am always filled with optimism.

 

 I made these spring-inspired cupcakes for the cake sale at my daughter's school. They turned out quite nice. Here they are! I was quite pleased with them.

Enjoy this new season. 

May the lighter days fill your hearts with hope. Much love. xx

Change,..the good, the bad and the ugly.

I haven't written on here for a while. I kinda didn't feel I had much to say, or maybe I kind of did, but didn't know how to say it. But anyway here I am, still unsure what to say but hoping something coherent will present itself.

So here we are, already into the 2nd month of 2012. I remember the feeling on New Year's Eve, at a really beautiful party, surrounded by friends and family, counting down to the New Year. I didn't feel particularly excited, I actually wanted to cling on the last few seconds of 2011, because at least it was known. I really don't like change. I really don't like the feeling that comes with the unknown. I'm not a 'jump in and see what happens' kind of girl, and yet life is constantly filled with change, with the passing of time, one minute after the other, and there's nothing I can do to stop that. So perhaps I'd better learn to love change, embrace it and get all snuggly with it, because it isn't going anywhere.

If I'm honest, change always opens up an opportunity to learn something, sometimes brutally, especially where there has been pain, ill health, or perhaps the loss of a loved one.

Coming to terms with the ill health that comes sometimes with having failing kidneys, has taught me to take each day at a time. To be kinder to myself and realise that the reason I feel grumpy or overwhelmed some days is because I'm actually not feeling very well. I don't always have to suck it up and get on with things. There is value in simply waiting for it to pass, and to allow myself to rest, or just be.  I am learning to let go of the self imposed expectation to be perfect, to have everything sorted, because it simply isn't possible. It makes the good days, of which there are many, all the sweeter.

My daughter broke her leg really badly last week and it really was quite stressful. Thank God she is on the mend now after needing to have surgery. Even though I really wouldn't have chosen for that to happen, because it caused her a great deal of pain, I am actually grateful now for the time I am spending with her without the busy routine of school, after school clubs, dance classes and various other things. I realised lying in the guestbed next to her on the children's ward, unable to sleep and filled with anxiety, that even though she is almost 11 now and growing into a beautiful young lady, it seems lots of things have changed, but not much has changed at all. She is still my precious baby.

Of course change comes in good, sweet tasting forms. The joy of a new birth, a new job, a holiday, a retreat (I'm planning on going on one soon), a newly acquired hobby. 

There are small, simple changes like changing the cushions on the sofa, or having a clearout, or redecorating the children's room, that bring refreshment and joy.

So here's to change! -the good, the bad and the ugly!. Even though I'm a month and a bit too late, I think I'm ready now for 2012!.