Settling In<\/p>\n
I stood in the kitchen surrounded by suitcases, cooler boxes, bags and piles of books and papers.\u00a0 \u201cSo this is it\u2019\u201d I thought, \u201cme alone after fifty years of being someone\u2019s something or other.\u201d
\nDespite the cramp in my diaphragm that had persisted for the hours it took to get here, I had made a few decisions about how I was going to behave in my alone status.\u00a0 It is amazing to me that my mother, who was widowed at the age of 34, insisted on sitting down to a properly cooked lunch at a table that was correctly set with the willow pattern china and family silver every day.
\nShe was quite right I now realise.\u00a0 It is important to set standards even alone in your house.\u00a0 So I had decided on two things: my bed would always be properly made and the dishes would be washed.\u00a0 Now this might not sound like much but for a woman brought up in Africa who since birth had servants to perform these menial functions, this was A Decision.\u00a0 Oh, and I also decided that I would eat properly and not degenerate into snacking and \u201cjunk fooding\u201d.\u00a0 Lofty ideals indeed.
\nThe next major decision was that I was going to take the week off.\u00a0 I was not going to get straight into writing, my purported reason for being here and alone, I was going to spend time with the Lord first of all, walk on the beach, read the books I needed to read as research for my novel, and generally chill as my younger son would say.
\nI had to get used to not being in a hurry, not pushing deadlines that were set by no one but myself, and most of all I had to find a place of peace and acceptance where I can live with myself and with those nearest and dearest to me if the creative genius that is in me is going to be released.
\nAnd so for the first time in as long as I could remember, I did not get everything unpacked within an hour of arriving.\u00a0 In fact some bags are still unpacked and it is fine.
\nI took time to reassure poor Snatch who was still immobilized with shock at her unceremonious removal from the car, and then unpacked what I needed to and thought about some food.\u00a0 I was ravenous having had only a \u201cpao\u201d (Portuguese bread) and some cashew nuts the entire day.
\nIt was great being able to do everything in my own time, at my own pace and not be dictated to by another person\u2019s needs that moved to a different clock to mine.\u00a0\u00a0
\nThis journey had really begun\u2026<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
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