Amber

Here it goes! I don’t know if it is a blog or a poem or a love child of both...

Amber comes from the Baltic coast. So do I.

The ancient legend tells:
The pine trees were crying.
Pine resin? Or tears…

And the cold salty water turned the tears into the amber.
I don’t know how long it took. Must be a very long time.
I was not there for so long. So, I don’t know.

In the summer the Baltic Sea is calm and lovely. Not being mad and spitting out the amber. 

We went to visit her just for paddles, swim and meditation.

That was in the childhood. 

We didn’t know it as meditation, we just looked in her colours and calmness and sometimes talked to Mama Sea. Particularly when heart was full of something heavy.

Maybe the amber was something precious but really heavy when accumulated in Mama Sea’s heart.

Maybe she really has a heart, which holds pine trees’ tears in it, till it becomes too much of them, too heavy? Then she releases them, the amber.

In the autumn, after the heavy storms we come back to the sea shore, walking slowly, looking for the uneven, rough skin stones, the amber. Picking them up, holding in hands, putting in pockets if too many of them.

And the taking them to school. Not to show to others! It’s not a secret, but we just take them there to make something.

We are so lucky to have a crafts teacher who knew what to do with the amber and all the tools, needed to turn it into jewellery. The necklace for mum, a brooch for grandma and more.

And I made them and more.

I sill remember how to do it.

Might do someday.

I am just asking to myself…..

Where is the amber?

In my hand, in my pocket?

In the Sea, in my heart, in the making?

I don’t know, I just hold it tight,

If I have some…

And feel all the sunshine, all the tears, all the strength

Of trees and sea and maybe me….

I am just wondering does our Baltic Sea still have those precious gifts?

Maija Ozolina

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Tribalism - Let's Be Individual

I’ve mentioned before about my childhood fear of the Nigerian tribal mask that used to hang on my father’s office wall.  This gift from his brother who spent many years working for a petrol company in Lagos in the 1950s was ugly and scary and moved with us from one pub to another. The mask and many items my uncle brought home had been given to him as souvenirs but they were meaningful to their tribes and culture and he was honoured to receive such things as gifts.

 

 Apart from the really scary mask, we had an ornamental boat made from brass that was always on the mantelpiece and fascinated me as a child, and a few other bits of bric-a-brac that had come from Africa. I don’t know where it all ended up. I can only guess it was lost over time, or discarded when my widowed father remarried.

I don’t think tribalism begins and ends in Africa, though. We all follow a culture of sorts, or a mixture of thoughts and feelings that define who we are and give us a sense of belonging when we are with like-minded people. Politics, religion, sport, entertainment; it all falls into specific boxes and some don’t or won’t mix.

 In my youth we had Mods and Rockers. Mods rode scooters, Lambrettas adorned with many wing mirrors and sometimes a fur tail. Rockers rode motorbikes, the bigger the better. Triumph Bonneville was loved and some of the Japanese motorbikes were getting popular, Honda and Suzuki. No one could afford a Harley Davidson. And Rockers never rode scooters.

There was the ‘either or’ thing in pop music. It was Cliff Richard or Elvis Presley, The Beatles or The Rolling Stones, rock/prog rock/metal or Tamla Motown. A person was not supposed to like both and live in both camps, but I did and I wasn’t alone. I like what I like.

My step-mother’s mantra was ‘be an individual, don’t follow the crowd’ and yet she complained because I was different from her and I didn’t conform to her ways. I didn’t fit in with her. I still don’t ‘fit in’ to a lot of things, including work, but not fitting in has never held me back.

Back to Nigeria, I found this poem:

     Tribalism is an identity
     Resulting to nepotism
     And a great animosity

     Tribalism is an identity
     Of no statutory backings
     Denting my nationality
 
     From existing as an entity
     Resulting to conflicts
     And the death of humanity
 
     Tribalism is an identity
     A scar on nationalism
     Degrading our community
 

By Onyeche Vincent Onyekachukwu

 

  

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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Harvest - The Pumpkin

I wanted to carry a neat arrangement of fresh fruit or vegetables placed in a shallow box on a green bed of scrunched tissue paper. It didn’t happen. Instead, with an air of apology, I would hand over some tinned produce my mother had sacrificed from our kitchen minutes earlier.  The gift was received with kindness, always, and stacked up with the others.  This was the pattern of many Harvest Festivals from my childhood, school and Sunday School alike.  I would forget to say anything at home until the last minute, leaving no time to prepare.

Years later, getting Harvest gifts ready with my children, we shredded green crepe paper, stuffed it into shoe boxes and added apples and pears to one box and root vegetables to another. It was lovely to watch them carefully take their gifts forward to be added to the display, which always looked wonderful in church or school hall.

Times change and we found ourselves preparing Harvest gifts to be passed on to the homeless, the Women’s Refuge, Shelter and many other charities.  Fresh produce wasn’t practical.  Toiletries, packaged food with a long shelf-life, socks, gloves, scarves and other small items of clothing would be more welcome.

Harvest isn’t just about thanks-giving, it’s about sharing and caring, and that is much more important than the careful presentation of the gift.

This autumn, I have had the delight of trying out new recipes for pumpkin.  A work colleague has grown far more then he could use and I was happy to help. Pumpkin pie and pumpkin soup are popular dishes, but I found a recipe for pumpkin bread and discovered it to be very more-ish.  The recipe is American which I did my best to convert and it worked out well.  It’s full of chocolate chips and is cake texture rather than bread, well, mine is. I’ll make it again next year.

 

I found this poem.

 

     The Pumpkin

Oh, greenly and fair in the lands of the sun,

The vines of the gourd and the rich melon run,

And the rock and the tree and the cottage enfold,

With broad leaves all greenness and blossoms all gold,

Like that which o'er Nineveh's prophet once grew,

While he waited to know that his warning was true,

And longed for the storm-cloud, and listened in vain

For the rush of the whirlwind and red fire-rain. 

On the banks of the Xenil the dark Spanish maiden

Comes up with the fruit of the tangled vine laden;

And the Creole of Cuba laughs out to behold

Through orange-leaves shining the broad spheres of gold;

Yet with dearer delight from his home in the North,

On the fields of his harvest the Yankee looks forth,

Where crook-necks are coiling and yellow fruit shines,

And the sun of September melts down on his vines. 

Ah! on Thanksgiving day, when from East and from West,

From North and from South come the pilgrim and guest,

When the gray-haired New Englander sees round his board

The old broken links of affection restored,

When the care-wearied man seeks his mother once more,

And the worn matron smiles where the girl smiled before,

What moistens the lip and what brightens the eye?

What calls back the past, like the rich Pumpkin pie? 

Oh, fruit loved of boyhood! the old days recalling,

When wood-grapes were purpling and brown nuts were falling!

When wild, ugly faces we carved in its skin,

Glaring out through the dark with a candle within!

When we laughed round the corn-heap, with hearts all in tune,

Our chair a broad pumpkin,—our lantern the moon,

Telling tales of the fairy who travelled like steam,

In a pumpkin-shell coach, with two rats for her team! 

Then thanks for thy present! none sweeter or better

E'er smoked from an oven or circled a platter!

Fairer hands never wrought at a pastry more fine,

Brighter eyes never watched o'er its baking, than thine!

And the prayer, which my mouth is too full to express,

Swells my heart that thy shadow may never be less,

That the days of thy lot may be lengthened below,

And the fame of thy worth like a pumpkin-vine grow,

And thy life be as sweet, and its last sunset sky

Golden-tinted and fair as thy own Pumpkin pie! 

John Greenleaf Whittier   1807 - 1892

 

Thanks for reading, Pam x

 

 

 

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