Six Months Old

Tia is six months old! She's trying to crawl, talk, feed herself and take on the world - we're just trying to keep up!

OooopS!

Peeps, I have only just worked out how to get the comments published! Soz about that. I am not even sure I did it right. Even the most basic of things get me. I'm all fuddled! Anyway - I think that they are there now....

BTW -
Dan, lovely to hear from you, I read your blog regularly.
Helen - pictures? No chance!
Matt - comment tastic as ever, thank you
Ruth - hell on toast????
Yarbs - classic.

MLK

Today is a national holiday in the States, commerating the life and achievements of Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement. In some parts of the country there are candlelit vigils, services, projects to serve the disadvantaged taking place. In other places its a time for family and friends. Or an extra day off, a chance to hit the shops. Again. When its like that I feel a bit like I do at Christmas where everyone's partying and kinda forgotten why. I want to make a bumper sticker saying something like
"Civil Rights is for Life, not just for MLK Day"

In the news and magazines, there's a lot more about the story behind the story of Martin Luther King. The internal wranglings of the civil rights movement, or the personal indiscretions of Dr King. It reveals the flawed hero. Its easy to get distracted by all that stuff and forget what was achieved, what he stood for. And yes the other stuff is a bit disorientating, but then so is some of the stuff about King David in the Bible and I'm still reading Psalm 23.

What I love about MLK and the movement at that time is that equality was not just an ethical issue, a justice issue. Racial equality, gender, class equality was, is, a spiritual issue, a God thing. A battle against evil. Such inequalites were (still are) offensive to God, and wrong, so Christians got up and did something about it. Their example showed there is a difference between saying you disagree with injustice and being proactive enough to change the staus quo.

So what of today - how should you spend MLK day? Find someone of a difference race and hang out? Ask a colleague about any "isms" they encountered and hear their story? I don't quite know, but much as I appreciate a day off, I think I'd like to do more than shop.

Ever the idealist, I believe that inequality of all kinds should be confronted and changed. Ever the optimist , I think the church should lead the way. Maybe less passivity about what really matters and more proactivity would be a decent place to start. For me included.

Dreams

Is there anything that you've always wanted to do, but never had the chance?

I suppose there are hundreds of things in most of us really. Secret things that Jim didn't fix for you many moons ago. Now time has passed and you don't know if you'll get the chance, or whether it matters anyway...

Well I've wanted to ride a bike (as in bicycle) since I was four and got bored of my fabulous but rather basic tricycle. But circumstances never lent themselves to getting that to happen. I never had the thrill of a pink bike with stabilisers and ribbons. And as if that wasn't bad enough, I missed out on the Raleigh Chopper, the Grifter and - the BMX. As a kid I envied my friends who rode past me with a freedom and finesse that I could only dream about as I plodded behind on my boring two feet. An Uncle once promised to buy me this amazing Grifter (my personal fave) from my mum's catalogue. Not long afterwards he went on a trip to Nigeria and didn't come back for about 10 years. He'd long forgotten his promise by then, but I hadn't. He had suffered the ultimate fall from grace in my mind. You promised me a Grifter, the one thing that I wanted more than anything else, and it never came.

Well almost anything else. Even if I had got my dream bike, there was still the small problem that I didn't know how to ride the darn thing. I hid the shameful truth from everyone, even myself when I could. I think I just hoped somehow that I'd get it.

Time passed. I moved on. I got into Wham, Shalamar, Musical Youth and The Kids from Fame. Then I got into puberty and hip hop - neither of which was going to let me do anything so foolish as trying to learn how to ride a bike. The closest I got to a bike was this rather random crush on a guy in the local bike shop. I don't remember much about him other than his black curly hair, but the bikes, the bikes were gorgeous. Absolutely beautiful.

The eighties left and the nineties began. I got more alternative, listened to indie (which might be normal for you, but I'm telling you where I come from, believe me, its alternative!) and settled on rare groove and anything on Acid Jazz.
Now it was cool, enlightened even to try something new. But I still didn't have a bike, did I?
When a cyclist passed me by - I envied them.
I went out with a cyclist for awhile. But I couldn't share my secret. Besides he was good, like national standard good, like shave his legs for competitions, good. He was into indie, which frankly I was utterly over by then and was trying to re embrace my inner hip hop child. We split up cos we had nothing in common.

The barren years continued. I sat on a bike a couple of times in my 20's but had no idea what I was doing. One thing I did know. When you are 5 ft 9 and you fall off a bike its a long way down, and no one picks you up and gives you a hug and your favourite sweets. They laugh or (worse) pity you.

Then I got married to a man who did mountain biking with an Orange bike. An Orange I tell you. Its not a Grifter, but who is complaining? He convinced me that he could teach me and that I could learn and that I would be great at it. I tried his bike once on the one flat part of Sheffield we knew (a hidden basketball court in Upperthorpe) and the seat is one of those that threatens your fertility. Seriously. I did a big circle, but I wasn't going to make a habit of that kind of pain.

Still the dream lived on. We moved to Phoenix (a flat city) in America. I prayed for a bike on a whim and got given a GT. It began with G, just like my Grifter. That was close enough. Then I had a child and tried the Orange again. Ouch.

So last Christmas I decided to ask my husband for a seat for my bike and a helmet. Which I felt was a big step considering he could have got me something really nice like a watch or jewellery or MAC make up or Floetry CDs. It committed me to my goal - to learn how to ride a bike before Tia would have to teach me.

Last Sunday we took to the road. I felt totally embarassed when a kid rode passed me, so I begged Chris to take me somewhere where no one would see. So we took to a school car park (US - parking lot). And I got on the bike and rode. I stayed upright, I went in circles and then straight lines. I turned corners. Tia giggled, probably relieved that there is one less thing she'll have to teach her mother about life. Chris applauded.

A 27 year dream was now complete. When I got home, I sat down and cried.

Is it me....

Or is there something rather ironic about New Year in New York City (the symbol of the US New Year) being marked by a huge glitter ball falling to the ground what is called " the dropping of the ball"?

The TV coverage here is hilarious. A hyper TV journalist goes through the crowd asking what their resolutions are for the New Year.

"I'm going to pray for World Peace"says one of the NYPD.
"I like world peace" replies the journalist.

Right...

Then later:
"One of the things that is so amazing about being here is that there is so much energy. So you see all the confetti around? I'm pretty sure that it will all be cleared up by the morning."

QUE?

"This place is sooo amazing. There's nowhere else like it in the world. I just met 3 people from Mexico hanging out in Times Square. They travelled up here from Mexico and all met here for the first time tonight! Isn't that amazing?"

Please stop talking.

"Anyone who is happy from any country in the world is in Time Square tonight. There is no other experience like it anywhere else in the world."

You're kidding me right? London, Sydney, Hong Kong, Beijing, Berlin, Paris ...

"We're in the centre of the universe, here in New York."

But of course.

The New Year party is hosted by Hilary Duff and the Pussycat Dolls are performing.

I think I've just found my new Eurovision experience.