Endings, beginnings and hand-washings

If you work in a school or nursery, this time of year is always full of endings. 
Children moving onto primary school or secondary school or taking their first steps into adulthood.  Staff moving on to new jobs or new countries or new lives   
The air is crackling with a strange mixture of excitement and sadness, laughter and tears. Every year at the Nursery and Children's Centre we watch our 4 year olds skip through the door into a world of classrooms and school uniform.  And even though they don't know it, they are leaving behind the first part of their childhood and even though we should be used to it, it is always hard to see them go (most of them!)

Endings are strange things. 
Part of the reason you start reading a book or watching a film is because you want to know  how it will end. 
But often when you reach the end, it is  unfulfilling  or sad or confusing. 
A memorable ending is the greatest gift a writer or film- maker can give you. 
Memorable endings are what we spend our lives striving towards. 
When you leave somewhere, you can't help hoping that you have made a difference, that you won't be forgotten, that without you there , something will be imperceptibly ( or perceptibly) different. 
When you move house, you hope that whoever lives there next will keep something of you in it: some wallpaper, the kitchen tiles, the shelves in the bedroom.
 It's the same when you leave a job, you hope that something you did made such a difference that a little part of you will always be there. 
And when you leave life, you cant help hoping  that the world will be a lesser place for the lack of you.

The truth is that our lives are a constant stream of endings. 
The end of school, the end of childhood, the end of being young, free and single,the end of work,  the end of breakfast, the end of X factor, the end of the day. 
But every time something ends, something else begins.
When school ends, the holidays begin.
When childhood ends, adulthood begins.
When you stop being young, free and single, it is usually because you have met your partner or become a parent.
When work ends, the fun begins.
When the  X factor ends, normal life begins again.
When the day ends, night ( and best of all ) sleep begins. 

" What we call the beginning is often the end.
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from."
                   From Little Gidding, T S Eliot

And that's why endings are so confusing. 
It's hard to know how you feel: happy, sad, excited, scared, everything, all at the same time.
One of my friends and her family are leaving England for good next weekend. Before they go, they are opening up their house and letting people buy everything they have left.
"It's a nice," says my friend, " to think of things we have owned scattered across friends' homes. Like a little part of us is staying behind."
But the truth is, it's not the things themselves but the memories they evoke, that keeps those we care about with us.
The memories of evenings spent laughing or days spent gossiping. 
The memories of shopping or drinking or wandering unfamiliar streets together.
The memories of nights on star drenched beaches, sharing dreams.
The memories of normal days, made special laughter.

And as long as our days are filled with moments worth treasuring, then real life will always be better than fiction because the ending will never disappoint.

My friend who is leaving the country and I were sitting together in Nursery the other day.  I was teaching in the kitchen where children were choosing different topping to spread on crackers. 

 A dark eyed boy with sticking up hair came in from the garden, sweaty and covered in sand. He sat down at the table and looked expectantly at the plate of crackers.

" Wash your hands and then you can have a cracker," I said.
The boy stared at me and continued sitting at the table.
" First wash your hands, then a cracker," I explained again.
Slowly the boy stood up and raising his hands, spat into them until they were dripping with saliva.  And once he had rubbed them together and dried them on his shorts, he fetched a plate and sat down again at the table.
For a while my friend and I couldn't speak, tears of laughter were running down our cheeks.  
She recovered first and found her serious face.
" I think you need to use water from the tap and soap to wash your hands," she told him.
For a second the boy stared at her, his eyes narrowed thoughtfully. Standing up, he started walking toward the sink but half way there he let out a blood curdling scream, rubbed his saliva and sand-covered hand in his hair and raced into the garden.
" I don't think he likes washing his hands," gasped my friend through our laughter.

And that's it. 
That's the memory.
A little boy with saliva covered hands and sharing tears of laughter with a friend.
A good ending to take with you to a new beginning.

The big boring breakfast battle

Like all parents, I know that breakfast is "the most important meal of the day."
Like all parents, I know that children who eat breakfast, learn better at school.
Like most parents of teenagers, I battle every morning to get them to eat it.

The battle usually starts on Sunday afternoon.
" So, " i say hopefully to Mia (15) and Joss (13), " dad's just going shopping, what would you like for your breakfasts this week?" 
" Anything's fine," says Mia, glancing up from her computer or away from a conversation with a friend about another friend.
" Don't care," says Joss, without lifting his eyes from his phone, which buzzes constantly with tweets from his 30,000 followers.
" Anything... and... don't care.. doesn't really help," I point out. " could you narrow it down a little."
Mia sighs and rolls her eyes.
" Why do you have to make everything so dramatic mum. It's just breakfast. Leave us alone. Get whatever."
" Mum and sister arguing about breakfast again, LOL," tweets Joss.
Ninesh writes " Breakfast things-whatever," on the shopping list and leaves for the supermarket. 
And I stand in the kitchen, explaining that I am not being dramatic and that breakfast is very important and Mia and Joss ignore me.  

And then it's Monday morning.
Sleepily Joss wanders into the kitchen in his trendy, baggy pyjama trousers.
He pulls open the drawer we have filled with bagels and muffins and malt loaf, stares at it disparagingly and slams it shut.
Ninesh comes downstairs, his ironed shirt in one hand and phone in the other.
" Joss just tweeted that there is never anything nice for breakfast in our house," he says.
I stare at Joss, who is now sitting at the table, his fingers moving like lightening across his phone.
" We've got loads of things for breakfast Joss," I say, my voice rising defensively.
" Not nice things," says Joss.
" There's bagels or muffins or eggs or toast or cereal or fruit or...."
" Exactly," says Joss, " nothing nice."
Mia floats in, her eyes still full of last night's dreams.
" Why are you shouting mum?" she asks.
" I'm not shouting," I shout.
" She's annoyed because I said there's nothing nice for breakfast," explains Joss.
" Oh that ," says Mia, " There never is. Can I have some of that curry left over from yesterday."
I feel myself relaxing. At least one of my children is going to eat breakfast without a fight.
" Of course you can," I smile, " I'll just heat it up."
"No. not now. I'm not hungry yet. I'll just have a cup of tea first."
I glance at the clock. In 20 minutes Mia and Joss have to be on their way to school and I have to be at work.
I grit my teeth. 
" Ok," I say," just tell me when.  Don't leave it too late though."
Mia glares at me.
" Why would I leave it too late. I'm not stupid.  Why do you always have to say things like that. Just forget it, I don't want anything for breakfast."
 And she storms into the bathroom.
Joss stands up.
" I'm going to get dressed," he says. " I'm not hungry anyway.  Why don't you just buy stuff we like for breakfast. Then you wouldn't have to get so stressy all the time."
And he walks upstairs, fingers on phone.
Ninesh's phone buzzes.
" Mum stressing out about breakfast again. Hahaha" he reads out. 
In my head, I race upstairs, grab Joss's phone and tell 30,000 complete strangers how I'm not stressed at all about breakfast and how lucky Joss is to have such a lovely mum.  In my head!
" Just let it go," advises Ninesh, " it's only breakfast. They'll eat if they're hungry."
And I know he's right.
But somehow I feel as though I am failing if I can't get them to eat at least a spoonful of cereal.
" But breakfast is the most important meal of the day," I begin forlornly, " all the research shows..."
Ninesh is already walking  away.
" All the research probably shows that breakfast is the most boring meal of the day... unless it's a fry up," he says, helpfully.
And perhaps that's true. 
 In other countries breakfast is just as exciting as all the other meals.  String hoppers  and kiri hodi in Sri Lanka

Chinese donuts and a bowl of warm soy milk in China

A cold platter in Germany

 Curries in Thailand

A bowl of cereal in England

Perhaps I need to be more creative with my breakfasts.  
Perhaps under " breakfast stuff," on Ninesh's shopping list, I should write:
Sate chicken, 
String hoppers
A variety of cold meat platters. 
Perhaps I should get up early so that the kids come downstairs to a beautifully laid out table with a variety of breakfast options each morning.
Or perhaps I should just stop being so " stressy."
Because  I can't help feeling that whatever I do for breakfast, 30,000 complete strangers would still receive the tweet:
 never any nice food for breakfast in our house. packet of crisps on way to school nom

The hopeful gardener

As it happens, we are all feeling a bit sad at the moment.

My father-in-law Sam, has had to have brain surgery for the second time in 3 weeks.  And he is battling to stay with us, mentally, if not physically.

And we are here , waiting.

Waiting for news.

Waiting for the phone to ring.

Waiting for a text

Waiting for anything that  will tell us that Sam is getting better.

It's hangs over us like a cloud, this waiting.  Stopping any of us from doing anything, just in case.

Perhaps that is why the washing is piling up and the dishwasher isn't being emptied and the house looks like a bomb of clothes and bags and empty cups and newspapers has exploded all over it.

Or perhaps that is just an excuse.

Because the truth is, that whenever I'm feeling sad, I leave the inside of the house to gather dust, walk outside and start gardening..

When I was young, I could never understand why my parents would spend Sunday afternoons digging and weeding and planting and mowing . Why would anyone  choose to get their hands dirty and their feet muddy, when they could be talking with friends or shopping or watching TV.

I'd like to say it's an age thing. But that's not true.  

At the Nursery where I work, the 3 and 4 year olds love gardening. They spend hours digging in the dirt, pulling out the flowers and vegetables we planted so carefully with them the day before and lovingly watering the weeds.  Even the most wild of boys become intent and focussed when they are gardening, lost in that  sense of wonder that a tiny seed or hard round bulb can turn into a beautiful flower or an enormous strawberry.

So on Sunday afternoon, as Sam was rushed to the High Dependency Unit, clinging to life, I dug my hands deep into the warm soil.  I planted delicate purple flowers and tall, paper-thin  pink ones.  I filled baskets with earth and waged war on weeds.

And I felt my heart slow and my thoughts calm.

And for a few absorbing hours, I forgot.

Forgot that I was in a tiny garden, in a small city. 

Forgot that my day was clouded in a shroud  of waiting.

Forgot that sadness was only a breath away.

Because that's the thing about gardening and watching things grow.

It's timelessly and unendingly constant 

It's everywhere and all the time .

I have stood on hard, hot pavements in the middle of enormous, dirty cities and seen the startlingly bright petals of  a perfect flower poking through a dusty crack in the road.

I have sat on the top of barren, windswept mountains and seen a delicate white flower nestling behind a rock. I have driven through fields and fields of untended wild flowers carpeting the world with colour.

Nature is frightening and uncontrollable.

But those tiny flowers, those splashes of colour where you least expect to see them, give you hope.

Because if they can beat the odds, perhaps anyone can.

If the flowers in our garden can survive my inexpert, ungreen fingers - then maybe, just maybe, when the phone rings, it will be with good news.