The Restory Retreat Centre

Photograph by George Angus Photograph by George Angus Next on our renovation list is the small scullery. That will be done through upcycling and the use of appliances that became redundant when friends renovated their homes. To borrow from Ernest Rutherford: “We don’t have money, so we have to think.”  In other words, be creative. To install the upcycled sink, I’ll have to reroute the plumbing. But in order to do that I must remove the old dilapidated cupboard that’s currently doing service in the scullery (It was previously in the bathroom, but we moved it when we created two new bathrooms). But in order to do that, we must find storage space for the linen we keep in there. And in order to do that I had to build a new cupboard for the kitchen.  It’s like operating on tonsils by pulling toe nails. There’s method in madness. That’s where “ Oupa George se kas ” (Grandpa George’s cupboard)  comes in. It must be at least 65 years old, built in t...

Photograph by Matilda Angus taken 6 years ago The Bustle in a House The bustle in a house The morning after death Is solemnest of industries Enacted upon earth,-- The sweeping up the heart, And putting love away We shall not want to use again Until eternity.                                                                 - Emily Dickinson (See the previous post Leaving ) It is the morning after my father’s death. I am alone in his room in the retirement home packing all his clothes and other belongings.  I cannot look at his slippers, or his shirts, his glasses, without seeing and smelling him in them. A deep, deep sorrow washes over...

Photograph by Matilda Angus “We live our lives, for ever taking leave.”                                                               Rainer Maria Rilke My father lived his life using his mind. He did not have to look up mathematical formulas. He carried it conveniently along in his head. Life was a trigonometrical problem for which tan and cosine applied. He could basically fix anything mechanical. He has Alzheimer’s. In the past few months there has been a rapid deterioration. I stand in his room in the retirement home, look at his mind through what I see. There are shoes next to his CD player, a light bulb in his socks drawer, his TV re...

My dad Photo by Matilda Angus I have had very few reasons in my life to feel proud of my dad. One being his truly beautiful singing voice. I loved standing next to him during church services and hear him take the tenor confidently and with the greatest of ease. In different circumstances he could have made it in the music world. But mostly, our lives were ruled by my father’s struggle with his demons: an inferiority complex and a terribly short temper. Looking back, I honestly don’t know whether we moved so many times because Dad was trying to better our lives with better positions and a better income, or whether he got into another scrap with his superiors and decided to move on. Yet for all his shortcomings, I now know he tried his utmost to provide for his family and he was a trustworthy employee. Also, he raised us the best he could on principles he believed in based on his strict religious views. But these things don’t stir up pride in a child or teenager’s heart. ...

Photograph by Matilda Clifford Pray as you can, not as you can’t.                                                                         Abbot John Chapman For a while now we have had a certain discomfort with our prayers at meal time. Set prayers become words of habit. My grandfather used to pray in Dutch, in all probability because his father, who might have actually known Dutch, prayed that way. My father prayed the same prayer before every meal as my grandfather did, but only in Afrikaans. Something might be said for tradition but somehow too much is lost in the process. In that sense an informal or f...

Photograph by Frans Marais In about two weeks time we are having a high school reunion. I’ve been told that  even class mates  now living  and working in the USA have indicated that they are coming. I, on this side of the Atlantic, am standing on a Sunday afternoon in the door of the bathroom. I’m about to take my dad back to the retirement village after a visit over the weekend here on Barrowfield. There is tension between us. He blames me for the farm in Gauteng being sold and him being in the retirement village. We just cannot agree on his frailty and the adjustments we have to make when we get older. As if totally oblivious to our struggles with Oupa Frans and the sleepless night we had while he visited, he is upset because we did not spend any time in the workshop. I’m tired of trying to explain and having the same conversations over and over. I am not proud of the manner  in which I often cope with his fears. I am constantly confronted with my own...

Photograph by David Chedgy My father worked with a horse-plough,  His shoulders globed like a full sail strung Between the shafts and the furrow. The horse strained at his clicking tongue. An expert. He would set the wing And fit the bright steel-pointed sock. The sod rolled over without breaking. At the headrig, with a single pluck Of reins, the sweating team turned round And back into the land. His eye Narrowed and angled at the ground, Mapping the furrow exactly. I stumbled in his hob-nailed wake, Fell sometimes on the polished sod; Sometimes he rode me on his back Dipping and rising to his plod. I wanted to grow up and plough, To close one eye, stiffen my arm. All I ever did was follow In his broad shadow round the farm. I was a nuisance, tripping, falling, Yapping always. But today It is my father who keeps stumbling Behind me, and will not go away.                            ...

The above picture quote was the last straw. I came across it in the course of the week and the moment I saw it again after so many years, I knew it was time. A number of other quotes all of a sudden came to mind as well. To me, quotes are quite often gateways to meditation. It all forms part of a topic announcing itself again. Not in the sense that it has announced itself before and I’ve ignored it – although I’ve thought about it on previous occasions. More in the sense that I am again entering the time of a certain topic coming to the fore unexpectedly on different occasions. As if to say: “It is my time. Look at me.” As other topics have done in the past. With me and my dad living on the farm, I am constantly confronted with and I am witnessing a person’s struggle to accept old age. My father has been very active all his life. He is a fitter and turner by trade, spent years in engineering workshops, but also repaired cars, built houses and farmed among other things....

My father with the four of us, at some beacon somewhere on one of our excursion, back in around  1969. When we were little, Pa took us to the places he discovered during the course of his working week as an electrician. It sometimes took him deep into the bushveld and later into the rain forests around Tzaneen. We even did a spell of six months down in Cape St. Francis where he worked on the electrification of a brand new 5 star hotel.       We lived in dire conditions in a little house we called "the train house" and I hated going to school in the nearby town of Humansdorp. Mainly because there were no grass playgrounds, only concrete and we traveled by bus, leaving home in the dark and wet of the Cape winter mornings. Accustomed to the dry, mild winters of the Lowveld,  we felt truly miserable.  But I rem ember best how we used to run up and down the corridors of the hotel, the smell of brand new carpets and a newly thatched roof. Looking through ...

Suppose a man got a 32 GB flash drive when he upgraded his cell phone contract. He backed up all his documents and many of his photos onto it. He kept it apart from his computer, in his room, because he didn’t want to lose his data should anybody steal his computer. This was a wary man, because he had a lot of trouble after all his power tools had been stolen the year before. And suppose that one day, when this man wanted to make backups, he just could not find that flash drive. He switched on the light, used his torch, looked in all likely and unlikely places, he searched very carefully. But he could not find it. He was very sad and just could not imagine where he might have placed it. Finally he stopped searching and used DVD’s for his backups. He missed his 32 GB though. The flash drive was useful when he took photos to his friend’s place as well. So, when he saw the special on 8 GB drives, he got himself one. It was very handy, but also made him realise anew what a bi...