A Million and One Lessons Learned From Our Dear Mabel Rockey

"squirrels don't gaf they just get fat and let their nuts hang much to be learned from these peculiar creatures" - @bongoism on X (formerly Twitter)

PREAMBLE

I would like to announce that I have changed the layout of my blog. Since its inception I have been backing myself into a tight aesthetic corner, process-wise. This is so embarrassing, but I wanted my blog to have the stylishly lived-in air of a Parisian apartment. That dream has died, though. I cannot keep writing each piece of Word, scanning each page of each piece, saving each scan of each page of each piece to Photos on my iPhone, trying to AirDrop each page of each piece to my laptop, calling Justin during working hours because my AirDrop feature isn’t working, writing down Justin’s instructions slowly and carefully on my Notes app, successfully AirDropping each page of each piece after restarting each constituent item of technology needed to make AirDrop happen, and, finally, fucking finally, uploading each page of each piece onto the Substack desktop page. It’s too much.

This is not the only reason why I have changed the layout of my blog. I have also made tweaks because aforementioned unreadability of blog has become the nexus of all conversation with my extended family. My mother has sent a link to my blog to what feels like every single person in South Africa; cousins from Benoni to Bloemfontein are settling down bimonthly to read yarn spun by their dear, if distant, English cousin. And what distance is going to stop a South African second cousin, thrice removed, from offering their two rand?

“Ha! Lia the English student *laugh emoji*. Love the pieces sam you have raised a nice daughter. Except pls tell her I can’t read the pieces properly can she change the design of the e-page.”

“She is a gr8 daughter Sam and nice to see she has a blog while she looks for proper job., Does she still want to be a vet. Ian sends love when r u guys going to be in durban next year. Xx but ps no one can really read the blog properly so can you ask her to change the layout *red heart emoji* *rose emoji*.”

“Lia’s blog is so wonderful, Samantha. She is a curious and spirited young woman! *purple heart emoji.* May I suggest updating the format to make it a little more readable. Send my love to Paul and Jack.”

So here I am, changing things up around here. Thank you, South Africa, for rallying together at this trying time and steering me, with a no-nonsense pragmatism, towards legibility. Thank you, me, for snapping out of it and making sh*t happen. I hope everyone likes my new, improved, readable blog.

PIECE PROPER

I am living with my parents again so they are my de facto best friends. Justin and I went to a book launch on Thursday that announced the arrival of a new play about best friends, with the authors suggesting that the defining factor of this dynamic is “blank, low-stakes conversation, with few peaks and fewer troughs, such is the banality of its content.” Aforementioned authors would be smug flies on the wall of my living room, so committed at the moment are my parents and I to the practice of blank, low-stakes conversation.

What is the blankest, lowest-stakes conversation you can have with a close family member? I theorise that it is “dog chat.” This is conversation centred around a furry friend. It is totally void of any real insight, emotionality or revelation. Nothing is said during “dog chat” that hasn’t been said a million times before. It is the ultimate act of talking for talking’s sake. And since Mabel Rockey whirlwinded into our lives two years ago, we have been doing a lot of it. A few days ago, watching said Schnauzer drop a wet shit onto the neighbour’s gravel (“Oh Mabel, you bad, bad dog”), my mother, Sam (we might as well all be on first name basis), posed the blankest of inquiries, with the lowest of stakes; an absolute belter of “dog chat”: “what, if any, are the lessons you have learned from our dear Mabel Rockey?”

What a question! A tasty morsel from the smorgasbord of best friend conversation! (Stiff competition: Justin and I explored every conceptual nook and cranny of the name “Michael” the other day). With a three kilometre amble to the local garden centre stretching ahead of us, my mother (Sam) and I had plenty o’ time to reach the series of watertight conclusions explored below.

1. Be as brave as a lion.

Mabel Rockey is the most confident young lady I know. She has always comported herself with the poise of a young Sarah Bernhardt. Shy only of horses much bigger than herself (yet also very, very intrigued by them), Mabel Rockey lets no person or circumstance get in the way of getting things done. When challenged - inevitable, as she navigates (so must we all) this crazy carousel called life, and most often in the form of admonishment for having eaten something very, very disgusting - she needs only to shake herself from head to toe before stabilising back to her usual cheery self.

2. Sing and dance all day long.

One of Mabel Rockey’s most ardent beliefs is that a song and dance can cure even the bluest of hearts. She expresses herself variously and with spontaneity, one day treating us to a limerick she has written about herself, the next to a rock anthem that would put bloody Nirvana to shame! Granted, most of her songs sound like whines or barks - but that doesn’t stop her, and neither should it stop you. We have passed many a rainy afternoon singing loudly and proudly together. With Christmas nigh approaching I have been trying to teach her the Good King Wenceslas descant.

A limerick that Mabel wrote about herself. She is extremely shy about sharing her poetry, so please don’t troll her in the comments. You can, if you wish, leave a gentle kiss, a funny joke, or a kind compliment, all of which I can pass onto her when I next see her.

There once was a Schnauzer called Mabel

Who liked to hop onto the table

Though ascent was fine, she soon came to find,

That at descent she was less able!

3. Think charming thoughts, do charming deeds.

Mabel Rockey has an uncanny ability to inject charm and whimsy into even the most trying of situations. Squirrel showing itself time and again to be much faster and more nimble than you, no matter how loudly you bark at it? Go back inside, friend, and arrange your toy banana, rat and dragon in a soft pile on which to repose and plan your next move. Much too muddy from a particularly rambunctious walk, to the chagrin of your owner who has a train to London to catch and so can’t bathe you? Stand up on your hind legs and do an inventive and adorable dance for said owner - forgiveness is yours. This is a Schnauzer who never underestimates the power of being absolutely delightful.

4. Just be yourself, man.

If asked to recall the rawest and most human figure in my life, I would say dear Mabel Rockey. Most of us recoil flush-faced from situations in which our idiosyncrasies might be exposed. Isn’t it so embarrassing to 1) actually have a really bad taste in music, 2) reject anything with capers in it because you find them “so salty” despite them literally being the coolest thing you can eat, 3) suffer from hypoglycaemia, which isn’t even a real thing? Mabel Rockey doesn’t think so. “Fuck capers!” she’d probably roar. “It’s fine that Drake cracked your top five Spotify Wrapped - you do you, sister!” If you caught her practising her favourite foible - identifying, retrieving and then eating an extremely old and disgusting chunk of bread or cheese, she’d say, while nursing a hard-won Guinness and adjusting her Stone Island badge into frame, “well, I know what I like, and I like what I know.”

5. Never be afraid to rock a bad haircut.

God, the haircuts dear Mabel Rockey has rocked; the haircuts she will, I’m sure, come to rock. Please never be afraid to do something a little bit crazy and fucked up with your hair. She had her groom a few days ago and I literally get a fright every time she bounds up to me. She looks like two bleached eyebrows on legs. It’s ok, though: dear Mabel Rockey might not be the prettiest dog in the world, nor the cleverest, nor even the kindest…but she is the most beautiful.