Cold and Tangerine

 Friday 17^th February 2023

Cold and Tangerine

Weather: blue skies turned colourless, sunshine turned to faint. 13 degrees.

If you knew anything about teaching you would know that often teachers crawl to the finish line of half term, relieved for peace and respite. Last Friday came around and the fatigue sat on my bones sprinkled with simmering excitement I for one simply could not wait for home time.

That was until a rat set off the fire alarm 3 minutes to 3pm.

Un. Believe. Able.

It is in that moment of grabbing your coat and walking down the stairs at pace that you ask yourself why did you think it was ever a good idea to re-enter the education sector.

As a supply teacher.

I got over that rhetorical question pretty fast as I signed out an hour later and closed the door of my Suzuki wagon heading down the Loose Road, anticipating the relax of removing my outdoor clothes and slipping on my khaki SoulCal jogging bottoms from Sports Direct.

“Oooooh Heaven is a place on earth!”

Belinder Carlisle sure had the aesthetics and tonal ability to pull off this 80s chirp.

A meal of breaded cod, chips and peas, and a summer fruit drink later (I too like to live dangerously), I was tucked in bed with a Netflix film...well, half a film before I conked out. 20-year-old Ching would have lasted until at least 11pm but that was one too many blue moons ago.

Being a sucker for routine my Saturdays are pretty regular.

• Wash mouth out with tap water, cleanse face and moisturise

• Zombie out with house keys and dirty washing towards the laundry shed (first dibs ahead of night owl housemates, get in)

• Make tea – usually Earl grey with oat milk. Yes, gone are the days of PG tips and cow milk with a blue lid.

• Attempt quiet time with The Passion Translation, NIV, devotional, and my neighbour Ron’s magazine on the floor as an after reward

• Meal prep for the week and batch cook using a slow cooker that I did not pay for. Thanks, generous people who used to live here.

It was regular until it was not as I receive an emergency text message requesting my babysitting services tonight.

I guess I could do with the money. A conference in South Africa doesn’t pay for itself.

I visualise that conference in South Africa, that journey in economy with Lufthansa complete with that lovely continental bread and decent cheese in a little plastic wrapper they serve you. Isn’t money such a daily motivator and stopper of rest?

German precision aside, have you noticed how the price of bread, avocados, and oat milk has gone up since the war? I might have to switch to iceberg lettuce and soya milk soon.

With all those thoughts flying around in my mind I replied yes to the job with open arms.

Cash cash cash.

Dosh dosh dosh.

Mine mine mine.

I actually don’t mind kids….anymore. Some can even be delightful company when they play nicely and don’t beg for the tablet. What I enjoy even more are kids with parents that pay.

Things get a little interesting when I am informed that the older child had a cough. I should have brought a face mask.

Lo and behold I came down with a cold and cough the next day after church. Like clockwork.

Half term

“So long half term!” shouts a war-time pin-up waving a handkerchief on the shores of my harbour.

Now here I am, with no place to go in my non-matching pajamas and dressing gown sitting up in front of three pillows (I’m so posh right now). On the bedside table to my right rests a mug of lemon, honey, turmeric and black pepper tea. On la lap is a tangerine on a plate because Kent has civilised me. The poison of choice is a Netflix series about an outcast jealous bookstore (bookshop, it’s bookshop!) manager who fixates on beautiful women whilst killing any man who gets in the way, starring that actor from Gossip Girl, the geeky one who should have told Blake Lively sooner that he was in love with her but he didn’t because how else would they stretch the plot for another series? Penn something.

The casting credits roll down. I reflect on my reflection in the wardrobe mirror straight ahead.

“I should have brought a face mask”.

Fin.

Garde le courage!

02/01/2023

Weather: blue skies, sun breaks through the bedroom window. Feels like 12 degrees celsius, unlike last Friday’s all-day drizzle.

Morning. I don’t know about you but the time period between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Day, in reflection of the year just gone. It is during this winter season that I leaf through old books, contemplating what went well, what was a train smash and perhaps the aspects in the ‘old Ching’ that I want to bring back to life again.

Several weeks ago, I shared with my church home group leaders about my conversion from Buddhism to Christianity. I said that, as I was an angry and broken young lady when I converted at the age of 18, I decided then that it was wrong to believe in my own mindset, my opinions, my way of doing things. It wasn’t an overnight transformation, more of a trickle of change over a the course of 15 years. Sure, I am thankful for the positive changes to my character however, and I am not 100% certain I want to divulge this...somehow in my attempts to become more like Christ, I have lost my sense of self. I looked to older sisters and brothers in Christ (more mature Christians basically) for help and advice. I mimicked their behaviour during worship. I remembered and copied their way of speaking, using phrases such as “Would you come to…..” or “May you be filled…”. Sounds so posh and sophisticated does it not?

Looking back, I now realise that I do not sound like myself anymore. I do not act like I once did, which is partly good, and partly increasingly sad.

Who is this girl staring straight back at me in the bathroom mirror?

In my efforts to try to rediscover the person I once was, I did what most people with Context as their top 5 strength in the strengthsfinder 2.0 do; I looked back to the past for clues. “Success leaves clues”, as the lovely English South African life and habit coach Shae Williams, who was on the eldership of Jubilee Church, would say to me when I find myself stuck and unable to move.

Looking back involves sifting through paraphernalia. It is currently Monday morning, I am in my pink and white stripey dressing gown covering flannel pajama bottoms from a FatFace sale a few winters ago, having just brewed my morning mug of tea. Normally it would be an Earl Grey however I brewed a rooibos accidentally due to moving my tea tins around during a sort out last night. Oh to not have caffeine first thing – dang it! But it was as if I was going to waste a cup of perfectly boiled water, so off I went back into my bedroom with my cuppa in tow. Breakfast will not be for another half hour as I wanted to fill my spiritual mind before stuffing my physical body so the overnight oats remained in the fridge. I sound so hipster but rest assured that I am not.

My fingers touched along the row of books on my bookshelf before pinching out a A6 black notebook with a vertical elastic band. I had bought this sketchbook for a university trip to Paris with my BA Illustration class back in 2009 (yes folks, I was an art school student, can you tell?!). Flicking through the pages, there was a realisation of how much I enjoy collecting data (Input is another strengthsfinder 2.0 strength of mine). To gather information and insight from others in their own handwriting is such a precious and valuable thing. In that trip I made friends with an American guy at the bar of the hostel we stayed in called Ryan Buesser. He wrote down:

“Hey,

It was awesome to meet you tonight. Tots-rule! I hope you make it down to South Africa (visit Lesotho) sp? Party tomorrow night ovars?

Buesser (Ryan) 28/11/09”

Had I known then that 4 years later in 2013 that I would be a missionary student in Modimolle, South Africa.

On the page next to Ryan’s message was one from Frederik, a gentle french-speaking Canadian fella who was also at the bar counter that evening. He penned:

“Ca m’a fait un plaisir de te recontrer, j’adore

tou accent, tu es une bonne

personne, garde le courage!

Frederik :) 28^th November 2009”

For all you non-French speakers out there, he wrote that it was a pleasure to met me, that he loved me accent and thought that I was a good person. How flattering! However it was the last part that pricked my ears as I read this today,

Garde le courage.

‘Garde’ means ‘to keep’.

I am curious. How often do I show courageous? How often I do shrink back in timidity?

Courage or no courage.

My mind takes me to all the times when I could have been brave, where I could have felt the fear and did it anyway. But I did not.

Being a lover of etymology, I google the meaning of ‘courage’, a word originated from the 1800s ‘...Middle English (denoting the heart, as the seat of feelings): from Old French corage, from Latin cor ‘heart’.’.

My Heavenly Father, through the tool of google (who said God opposes technology and innovation, hey?), reminds me to take heart and forget not His benefits. I reframe my mind, or rather, allow my mind to be reframed, renewed, revitalised. I recount the memories of:

• Fighting my bully Jade during Year 9 in Secondary School. NB: I did not throw the first punch, jus’ sayin’. I was generally a good student! Not that diligent but I was compliant for sure.

• Deciding to leave art school to embark on a year-long course called Year of Training at Jubilee Training Centre, the flagship ministry of Jubilee Church.

• Dealing and overcoming my phobia of driving on the motorway

• Leaving the education sector last May after 6 years of service in search of a different horizon

I choose not to set up camp on the hills of regret. Instead I build a memorial remembering all the good that He has done in my life. Where He had used me as His earthen vessel to make a difference in this world, no matter how small.

As I finish typing of these 3 morning pages, I decide that today, I vow to ‘garde le courage’! I will take heart, be it with a planned conversation, spontaneous message or within my secret place.

Might you join me in this venture of courage?