Injury Prone Tai Tai

I’m like a walking mummy, there’s so many bandages

Okay, so I just have to tell you something that’s been happening to me. It only dawned on me how bad it’s been this very morning - when I realised I could finally wash my hair without having to wear gloves to keep the Bandaids dry.

Since we’ve repatriated to tidy, clean safe-haven Australia, my limbs and skin have become subjected to a pretty continual supply of injury. Not just the odd paper cut or scrape... I’m talking nearly breaking an ankle on the floorboards, huge gouges in my back that – in truth – really should have received stitches, and nearly slicing-the-tip-of-my-thumb-off kind of stuff.

It’s not that I’ve returned home and am suddenly clumsy. It’s that I’ve returned home and have temporarily forgotten my centre of gravity when I mop the floor. I’ve also forgotten to be mindful of protruding, rusting metal brackets when I stand up suddenly near the garden shed after weeding. And I’ve very much forgotten the skill is takes to slice a cucumber with a very sharp knife.

No, I didn’t do much mopping, gardening or slicing in Beijing. Can you tell?

I decided this morning, when I was finally free of stinging, bleeding, dull aches, bandages, bandaids and outright agony for quite literally the first time in months – that this really has to stop. I need to be more mindful of this housewifery thing. I need to slow down and just accept a large chunk of my day will be taken up with the mundanity of mopping, sweeping and fluffing pillows. Surprisingly dangerous stuff. Have you ever had a pillow's feather-stem in the eyeball? Not pleasant.

And every night, I will – yes I will – have to cook dinner and risk all manner of scalding and burning (yes, that happens frequently, too).

Ach.

Ayi! Oh, ayi! Where are you now? Why can I not fax you forthwith to Australia? And it’s not for the reasons you think… if I don’t develop my sense of gravity-centered housewife awareness soon, I might need to employ an ayi just to change the bandages. God help me.

First published on the City Weekend Beijing website.