My house... my home?

I have just let a scalding hot iron take it's gravity course and onto my toe. Boy it hurts, and it's hot, hot, hot! I am a total failure when it comes to domestic chores. My peers all have everything ironed out perfectly, and that doesn't mean just the laundry. They wake up on time, splash the war paint on, get dressed up to the nines and arrive at their place of work at a decent time. They are also able to have dinner ready, wash three or four kids, tuck them into bed and wait for their husband. Me... I can only do maybe half of that. Thankfully I have a domestic lady who makes my house shine, I wouldn't be able to do it myself. Somehow I just throw my stuff everywhere. I cannot help it. I love clutter, because I can find my way easily through it. If someone organises everything, then I cannot find a thing. Something along the genetic road must have happened. My mum has everything in its proper place and order, my brother and I... we just have to get help. But then is a perfect house also a perfect home? I like to think it's not. I like my house anyhow, because I am surrounded with what I love the most. I also love it because it's so red that it would easily pass for a towering inferno. But it's all mine, and I'm content with it.

The let-downs

Perhaps Father Christmas is a fictitious character, with fictitious reindeer and bells, and with fictitious sleighs. But I don't want to know about it. And no I haven't lost my marbles, I just like to believe in all this, because if I didn't then Christmas would never be the same. I also believe that this Father Christmas hasn't retired yet, and that perhaps he has a fixed aged of 65. I don't care if he has been eating chocolate all year long, because I don't mind big people. It doesn't matter how big he gets as long as he can get through the front door which is very wide in comparison to chimneys. I also believe that Christmas is Baby Jesus' birthday, and once that baby is born then it means He will forget nobody. I like magic even when it's spiritual. I like to believe that God has our names inscribed on His hand and will never let anybody down. And I also like to believe that I too, will not let anybody down especially those close to Baby Jesus' age. By normal, sane reasoning I should by now probably be touring somewhere with an orchestra but I am not. Somehow, by a very strange turn of events I am doing something else; a turn of events which rocked my very own core. I had little hope of surviving, but Watch Me Now! I am far better then I would have been if I had given myself up for adoption by Arani Issa! Sometimes when strange things are happening we try to look for answers and do not find anything at the time. But patience is a virtue, and it also gives us answers. Now I know why. I also know that since I now have the answer I have to do my best not to let anybody down. It's hard but I am getting there. I am making a teeny weeny step every day. I also thought I would never find a man who would listen to me, a man who thinks I am his queen, a man whom I can relate to on all levels. I am the one who sets the ball rolling, but then I am too shy to make so much as a phone call. My man is the one who does all the dirty work. It's just like a tandem, I have always wondered who of the two was putting in the most energy. But it doesn't matter as long as the two can work it and make it happen. Malta is so strange. You just have to know people, which strings to pull, which contacts to turn to. Why am I doing this? The only answer I can come up with is that I feel I have a duty to help a little person, because he would never make it on his own. Sometimes little people are let down so much, not because they believe in magic and Santa Clauses, but because their trust is taken for a ride. Trust is one thing which can never be replaced. And I am not about to break that in a hurry. I will try my best not to be another let-down. They have suffered enough already at their young age. I am no expert and bound to make mistakes, but I will try as hard as is necessary. If it means saving one little person from going down the rough road, then it'll be enough reward.

Awesomely perfect

Today as I peered through a glass door, in a big hurry because I was running late, I just had to stop. There it was the first Christmas Tree, perfectly decorated, and perfectly standing on a table which had a perfectly creased cloth all over it. And then I remembered. There was only one person who could do that to such perfection. It was just so perfect that I missed seeing the crib and the Baby Jesus, although curiosity getting the better of me, I did go down again to see the perfect crib and again the perfect Baby Jesus. Again it could only have come from one person. My memory isn't that bad. One would think that such a perfect someone would be a stickler in other things, but no, it doesn't work out like that. And I'm glad. Glad to have a professional someone who works perfectly but who does not require total perfection from others. It also made me sad. What I'd give to be able to turn back the clock, perfectly of course, and make it last year. Last year when I didn't have to explain myself because I talked to a little person. Last year when I could hug the little people and nobody batted so much as an eyelid. Last year when human contact was not such a big issue. And last year when I knew I could sit down and explain and be listened to and heard. It's so sad that I cannot do that now. I have to keep thinking about policies and issues and stuff. In my day, it never was an issue. Today it shouldn't be an issue either, as long as it's done with the best of intentions, that being putting the little people first. I suppose I understand, but I don't agree very much. It seems we're missing the whole point here. Do not get involved, that seems to be a commandment. And although it's painful for me, I wonder how beneficial it is for little people. There is a little man out there and I so would love to talk to him for ever. But I cannot. I just wish this year was the perfect last year.

Let the little children...

In my life (and this is getting to sound almost prehistoric), I have had more than 20 years of professional music experience. I know an orchestra like the back of my hand. I also know the pros and cons of being a full time professional musician. It's quite funny sometimes, sad sometimes, and downright a jungle at other times. And by jungle I do not mean that it's one colourful place full of lovely animals who can eat from your hand. Rather, it's a big survival of the fittest. Opera may sometimes look silly, especially when you are listening to a woman singing her heart out about love when she should actually be dead. But not withstanding the silliness of it all, opera never fails to be dramatic, and the same thing is carried on in orchestras. We live music, we breathe music without having time on our hands to consider anything else. I do not really know how I fell into music as a profession. My mum didn't want to hear about it, my dad kept silent but I knew he didn't mind it at all. The trouble is that when you're good at a lot of things, it's so difficult to decide. And for me, who cannot even decide which socks to wear, it was even harder. So I just followed suit and just went for the something I loved the most, without realising that I would have to give up most of my life.

One of the worst periods of my life was in 2005 when I switched professions. I hated it. A lot. I never considered myself to be able to work with little people on a daily basis. Me and kids? Forget it. I remember trying to figure out why my dad happily left for school every day for more than 40 years. I just thought he was hopping mad. As a child I was Freud's textbook daddy's little girl who could get envious of mummy! No I wouldn't share my dad with anyone, it was enough having to share him with my twin. Why was my dad always so happy? Because he knew he would be going to school the next morning! It sounded like some terrible OCD something. But it wasn't. Now I understand. I understand that walking into a workplace and seeing smiling little faces is so much more beautiful than walking into a workplace and seeing disgruntled adult faces. When people come to watch an orchestra, they think that we're a prim and proper lot. Wrong. We aren't. We're just a dangerous sum of different people from all walks of life who are thrown together into an arena. Worse still, there are no lions in there because we're even more fierce than the lions themselves. And we're supposed to make harmony. Yeah right. A packet of Twistees and a Mars bar make so much more harmony than that. Evening wear and highly polished shoes do not automatically transform people into being a harmonious lot. But normal jeans can transform little people into the men and women of tomorrow. It's not that hard. I only do what my dad did with us when we were young. With little people you do not have to watch your back because of a devious colleague. No little person is plotting against you and throwing venomous arrows at your back. The most problematic of children will somehow always respond to a smile. And now I can understand dad. And Jesus. Ok I am not very religious but maybe I should be. It's Jesus who said "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them; for it is to those who are childlike that the Kingdom of the Heavens belongs." And I think that Jesus was better than any Freud, of Jung, or anybody else.