Flowers, familiarity and philosophy

It looks like we are getting to the end of our fabulous roses. There are a few buds in the garden but not many.

For the first time ever I have collected the petals and made pot-pourri. I don't know why I did not think of it before; it is so easy.

The power has just gone back on after two hours so I am hoping to save my Sour Cream Strawberry Pie. It was meant to be cheesecake but when I pulled out the cream cheese I discovered I had bought mustard flavoured. Sigh.

A little more attention when shopping would not go astray. Still, perhaps the mistake has led me in a different direction and added something fabulous to the menu repertoire.

The tart had about half an hour in the hot oven and needed twice that. I left it until the oven cooled down but it was still quivering. So it has gone into the fridge and will go back in the oven as soon as it heats up.

They say that the more stimulating and unexpected life is the more synaptic connections your brain makes. There must be quite a synaptic dance going on in my head in regard to cooking at present. Apparently the more your brain works the better it functions; a bit like physical exercise although I am pretty poor on that count.

Powee asked me yesterday if I would like to go walking with the group. But I said no, I don't really like walking. That is not strictly true. I would happily walk all over a city but I am not into walking around the block. It seems somehow pointless. I would rather run up and down stairs which I do anyway.

Maybe it is the Virgo in me but I have to have a destination and I mean a material destination. I realise that most people would see 'physical fitness' as a destination but I think you have to enjoy what you are doing for it to be beneficial. If you hate walking around the block it's not going to do you any good. I would rather vacuum. Activity with purpose.  Just as I am sure eating things which 'are good for you' but which you don't enjoy can't be doing much good.

And the other reason I would not join a walking group is because I naturally walk extremely fast. I would be miles ahead of all of them; no conversation and sitting back at home before they got halfway around the block. Pacing myself to someone else's speed is annoying.

I find it hard enough when Greg and I walk somewhere. I seem to be forever turning around to see him steadily pacing behind me and then I have to backtrack, try to keep pace and soon find myself looking back again until he catches up.

Not that any of this is relevant to baking or power cuts. Maybe one can have too many synaptic connections and be distracted more readily; drawn off into a tangent at whim!

I'm not sure what I will be putting in vases when the roses are done. The honeysuckle is in blossom but it wilts quickly as does bougainvillea.

There are lots of leafy things in the garden and a few small flowers so I shall have to be inventive.

LEFT: Being inventive. Floral arrangements are not my forte!

I am pondering the fact that the brain gets its best workout when we are presented with the unfamiliar and the unexpected. Most people spend a lot of time ensuring that their world remains familiar.

Familiarity, as I learned a long time ago, does not necessarily breed contempt but it does breed familiarity and what is familiar is comfortable because it is 'known' and less 'unpredictable.'

Well, that is what we tell ourselves. Life has a way of sneaking up on us when we least expect it, or, as the saying goes: 'Life is what happens when you are busy making plans.'

But there is no denying that if you stay in the same house, in the same city, the same job and keep the same friends then there is going to be a lot more familiarity in your life than there is in mine.

With familiarity it is easier to maintain the illusion of certainty and the belief that we are somehow in control. Change frightens people because it moves them out of their comfort zone and their comfortable zone. We fight bitterly against change because it frightens us. Would we be more open to change if we believed it was good for our mental, physical, emotional and spiritual health? Maybe.

The English-born poet, W.H. Auden put it brilliantly when he said:

We would rather be ruined than changed. We would rather die in our dread than climb the cross of the moment and let our illusions die.

I wonder what it is we really fear in the process or moment of change. Change is the only constant in life; we are in an eternal process of change even though we do not notice. We cannot grow up without changing; fall in love; get married; have children; change jobs.... and yet there is an instinctive drive to resist change.

For whatever reason I have come to believe that if you need a particular lesson you will get it - or it will get you. It's one of the reasons why I end up in all sorts of places which a lot of people think are 'crazy places' to live. The opportunity arises and you have a choice, within limits, as to whether you accept or reject.

There have to be very good reasons for me to reject because I believe that everything in life has purpose and happens for a reason. And you can't ever let fear be a part of the decision-making process. In fact, if you are frightened it's a good sign that it is something you need to do.

And I have a feeling that if you reject an experience which will manifest in the outer world then you will get another version at the inner level. I know which I prefer.

Well, it's my theory and it works for me and it has meant that life has been a fascinating journey along totally unexpected paths; into strange and unknown realms. And as my astrological chart reveals, as does Greg's, we are destined to live in different cultures and travel a lot. It has been a nomadic life for all of the forty years we have been together. Well, forty this month which is something of a milestone given how many of our family and friends said it wouldn't work.

This year will be a novelty given that Greg has managed to be away for most of our wedding anniversaries although, even as I say that, I am conscious I may be speaking too soon. Not that it matters; we have never made much of wedding anniversaries, maybe because we knew it wasn't meant to work and both of us have forgotten the date at one time or another.

ABOVE: My first batch of pot-pourri.

How did I get from a sour cream strawberry tart to this? Ah yes, unpredictability and the desire for familiarity. I guess it is why ancient spiritual teachings have always maintained that the only sure and certain place is within. The world is always constant because we are our world; the rest is merely image and experience.

One experience I would like to have is our goods arriving but there has been no further word on that front. Neither did Lawrence appear to set up the DSTV nor Mr Das to install our extra power points. Inshallah! All happens as it will. But Mr Chawanda did come to check the air conditioners. He said he would come back at one but is not here yet.

I just checked the Strawberry tart and it smells good but looks decidedly unstable. I am sure there is someone around here who will be happy to eat it. There always is.

I gave Fred, the gardener, who has seven children I am told, some cake and strawberries for morning tea and a few tomatoes yesterday. I gave the day guard some cake and strawberries for morning tea as well. I am sure between the three guards, Fred, Limited and Mbwe I can find someone who is happy to eat soggy strawberry tart.

We give food to the night guards when we have extra but we don't do it every night. Greg is at the mine this week and my tendency to cook for a crowd remains unstinted so I handed out plates of Hopping John last night and Curried Beef and Okra the night before. Hopping John is one of my favourite things; a mix of rice, black-eyed peas (actually they are beans); green peas, bacon, onion and stock.

It is impossible to cook a small amount of Hopping John so I had heaps left over which Limited said he and Mbwe would have after I asked him if he ate ham - remembering they did not eat pork - and he said they did. Actually it was bacon but it amounts to the same thing.  I had asked him about bacon before and he didn't know bacon was pork. He did say they ate ham so I didn't like to tell him it was pork. Is that awful? Probaly not. He said it is not a religious belief, they just don't eat pork.

Given that I cook quite a lot with bacon or ham he and Mbwe would be missing out on a lot of leftovers if I explained that ham was also pork. I still have enough for another two serves which means I had cooked enough for about eight people. But rice is like that. No wonder it is the staple diet of both India and China with all of their billions.

Well, the tart is out of the oven and quivering a little less so I am hoping a night in the fridge might allow it to settle into itself enough to be sliced as opposed to eaten with a spoon from the dish. Maybe I could freeze it and pretend it was meant to be served that way.