Putting on the dirty boots

The very first thing is to be honest. Here I sit in what can only be wanton luxury. I'm in a house that might be described as cacophony, perched noncommitally (read guiltily) on a broken swivel chair in a communal study beneath a fan I am too hot and bothered to sack in favour of the airconditioning. It is the usual 40 degrees celcius outside. Nonetheless, weather permitting, which it never is at this time of year, this is timewasting. This is not my job. My job is to venerate my position of protector and defender of the guttural gates (the kitchen). My role is to muster the cherubs into cleaning up their Made in China, Made in Class, Made in the Sandpit And Strewn Through the Living Area detritus. My position is to work this house until it is puking with cleanliness.
To be honest, I'm doing battle right now. I'm sure I'll be rambling out of this oppressive air and into the chilled bombsite shortly. But, before aforeparenthesised guilt manages to chisel away enough at my digits to prise me out of here, I'm going to get something out. The truth.

I'm turning forty this year.

Now, I know that various members of this blogging brigade might offer the following, if not in text, then in spirit:
1) Condolences (Oh dear. You didn't seem that old.)
2) Pity (Get over it. How do you think I feel? I'm 49!)
3) Anger (And I'm 50!)
4) Wisdom (I'm 85. Get off this blogsite and start living).
5) Applause (Hooray! Some other housepersonwifeperson is about to leave her mess and clean up. I'm nearly 40 and I love cleaning up!)
6) Despair (Applause, you're a f(*&^%g nutter.)

I'm turning forty. But more to the point, I'm turning 40 and, in truth, I am quite chuffed about this. I haven't at all succumbed to the wisdom that 50 is the new 40 (that's right, Kylie, if you hadn't had so much Botox, you might look ten yearsyounger.) Or the more conventional wisdom that 30 is the new 40 (no one buys that either Courtenay Cox. Demi Moore, maybe...). So, with my two children having reached that magical developmental milestone, at ages four and two, of not eating sand and bursting into tears upon discovery it's not apple pie, I figure it's my time again. I'm not so much Lady Lazarus, awakened from a long sleep - she unsurprisingly hasn't had much of since 2005 - but more akin to a French souffle. All the ingredients are there. My eggs are cracked (thank god THAT'S over) and the raw talent's just waiting to be whipped up into a frenzy. All I need now's a copper bowl, a whisk, some Grand Marnier and I'm cooking.

And by cooking. I mean writing. Writing about cooking, maybe. Cooking up words, possibly. But about everything I can possibly ruminate on. How incandescent. In fact, it's searing through my innards right now. The intact ones, the ones whose used by dates have passed, the ones that keep trying to fall out (without harping on the eggs business), but most of all, in heady, hedonous hurrahs, the beating bits. I'm becoming, as I surge onwards, all bubbles of love inside. Oh, I'm perched, still somewhat precariously, but now as I ease into the QWERTY, my happy limbic bits are limbering up, fighting back, baffling guilt, pressing my soul, like fingers adoringly prodding a warm focaccia dough. When I was in Grade 5, my teacher scoffed at me for inventing the phrase 'placidly effervescent.' Oh, how wrong she was. Can you hear my shrieks? My peels of joy? Incandescent laughter? No, no. But touch here. No. Not there. Here. A bit to the left. That's right. Thunderheart.

It has been eight years (four years BC) since I pulled on my boots. I recently bought a new pair for my elder daughter. She'd noticed how bedraggled and degraded my own were. Many a country, endless kilometers of adventure, broken orange laces and gravel, grit and ice grazed by explorations into so many dark hearts and luminous cavities of the planet. 'Your boots are so dirty, Mum.' I suggested to her that boots like mine tell stories. 'Then I want to go on an adventure Mum and make my boots dirty so they tell stories too.

Time to get the boots dirty again. Metaphorically and full on verily feral. It's not that I can't make the time. After all, I'm only turning forty this year.

And it's mine.

Think I'll go and clean up now.