Yearning

Picture: Imhoff Farm, near Ocean View in the more southern mountains of Cape Town.

I find myself yearning for tranquility, a powerful pull towards nature, space, a slower pace than the city allows me. Trying to find the balance, as usual, between my need for solitude and its flipside, companionship. Most of the time, I'm able to organise my life so that I achieve whatever it is I need to get through the day, the week, the month, the year. Dealing with the uncertainty of my standing in the employment market brings about a level of disquiet, unease, which I understand is inevitable. I am a proud person, like most of us are, and thrive on my independence. Having to rely on others to get me through this period is difficult, and yet I know that once I'm employed again, I'll honour all my commitments. Actually enjoying pushing myself to come up with different income-generating activities, so that I'm not passively waiting for others to make my life happen.

Many years ago, when decisions made in the wake of my divorce left me reeling financially, I approached a close friend for a loan of R2000, promising to repay her as soon as I'd found my feet again. This was someone I saw almost every day, with whom I shared some of my most intimate feelings and issues, someone I'd had many experiences with. Calling her up and asking for the loan was a last resort and took a lot of courage; I asked in a way that didn't assume anything and that gave her the space to decline. I encouraged her to discuss it with her husband, and I waited for her response. When it did come, the words she chose cut me like a knife: "We have a policy that we don't lend money to people."

Without going into detail about their opulent circumstances, I have to say that the use of the word "people" was what hurt me the most. This was a very close friend, who knew all the facts about my life. What also hurt was the fact that there was absolutely no understanding of how few choices I had, and just how hard it was to get up every day and carry on. I discussed it with a mutual friend, who said she could help me with R200 if I needed it. By that time, I had made the decision never to put myself through that again, and I'd started pawning whatever I could, including my wedding rings and my back-up musical equipment. Material things have meaning to me only insofar as they serve some purpose. I had two small children and I had to survive.

After a period of inconsistent income and quite a bit of turbulence, I settled into my new job, happy to be able to consolidate and work towards greater financial freedom. But my own struggles had heightened my awareness of the plight of others, and I soon identified someone who desperately needed help but was too proud to ask. I took a serious look at my budget and decided I could allocate a small amount every month to help ease her load. One of the hardest things for me, related to my retrenchment, was breaking the news to her that our arrangement had to end.

When I am employed again, I will make sure I don't live my life selfishly, with blinkers on. But for now, life has presented me with huge challenges, some of which terrify me, but most of which I've decided to channel into a learning experience. I WILL come out of this and I WILL go on to be happy and productive again. Most importantly, I WILL be a better person for having been forced out of my comfort zone and into a different headspace, where my appreciation of simple things is at an all-time high.

Which is why, with so much going on in my head, so many things to reflect on, I yearn, on a daily basis, for peaceful surroundings. I'm deeply grateful that some of my social activities have taken me to breathtaking spots in our beautiful Mother City, Cape Town. I think I've also come to terms with the fact that my aspirations lean towards tranquil surroundings. So maybe one day people will say, "Have you heard? Trudy's really bought the farm!"

Personal best

Today I went to gym after a 4-day break (had been really busy) and swam 40 lengths, my all-time personal best. But people don't want to hear that from me right now, do they? People get frustrated that I haven't found a job yet. How the hell do they think I feel?! And how the hell can it be linked to my swimming? Can I honestly JOBHUNT 24 hours a day? It doesn't work like that.

Finding all over again that life is indeed complex, and that some personal victories are best kept to oneself, or blogged about, or tweeted about. I can understand why many people simply retreat into their private little worlds and don't bother to hang out with a group.

And so I will repeat, on my blog: today I swam 40 lengths, my personal best. I am SO proud of myself!

Happy birthday, Summer Dawn

Today my daughter turns 12, an age she's wanted to be for years!! Just about my height, she's going to be quite tall when she stops growing. A fascinating person, this 12-yr-old. The year before she was born, dealing with the devastating effects of a miscarriage, I consulted an astrologer. Having made no reference to what had happened a few months before, I was blown away when she said, "I see a daughter for you". In that same reading, she said that I would also travel abroad the following year. It was only after I'd come back from my first-ever overseas trip, in mid-1998, and given birth to Summer in November that year, that I recalled the astrologer's words. Thirteen years later, I still have contact with that astrologer, and she's an amazing person. She relocated from Johannesburg to Cape Town and now lives a few suburbs away from me. Her accurate readings have continued over the years, and I have a lot of respect for her. She's counselled me through many different experiences over the years, and I admire the way she chooses her words. Often, only after I've experienced something do I realise that she had alluded to it without spelling it out.

But, back to Summer. I remember getting to the 40th week of my pregnancy and feeling I couldn't last another day. I started panicking at the thought of being pregnant for 41 or 42 weeks, because I was so heavy and the baby wasn't descending, and so I opted for an induction. To fit in with the doctor's timetable, I booked into Constantiaberg Medi-Clinic at 3am on a Monday, and my baby was born at 09h20. Something went horribly wrong with the epidural (a rushed job, to fit in with anaesthetist's surgery schedule!), my body went into some kind of shock reaction, and I had to have a C-section under general anaesthetic! I'll never forget the panic in the delivery room when the baby's heartbeat started becoming faint. Not an experience I'd wish on anybody!

I woke up in the recovery room at 11:00, and drifted in and out of consciousness til 11:30, when a friend who worked at the hospital came to tell me I'd had a daughter! A few minutes later, I was wheeled past my then-husband, who also told me excitedly that we'd had a daughter; I couldn't talk, but I touched my hair, asking wordlessly what any brunette would ask at the birth of her second child, when the first one was a redhead. "Another redhead!" he said, barely concealing his delight. I saw my daughter for the first time just after 11:30, two hours after her birth, and it was like dejavu - she looked exactly like her brother had looked, 4 years earlier! I held her in my arms and fed her, and I felt the most surprising feeling - that I had achieved one of my most important things in my life! I had given birth to a daughter!What a wonderful feeling after having had a son - it felt like the ultimate blessing to have one of each.

That was a curious time of my life. With Summer's arrival, I used to say our home had "three Sagittarians and one vegetarian"!

This little girl has had quite a life, with her parents splitting just before her 2nd birthday, and she's turned into a fiery, fiesty young person, with strong opinions and convictions, and a wonderful gift for languages. She's also got a great eye for photographs and has spent the past year saving up for her very first serious camera, which she's planning to buy for Christmas.

Her dream careers over the years have gone from bus driver to egg slicer, teacher to singer, and most recently, to photo-journalist. She's decided she's going to Rhodes University and then she's going to travel all round the world taking photos and writing. About to enter Grade 7, she's got 6 more years of schooling ahead, during which so much could happen.

I'm incredibly proud of my daughter. She's very witty and has sharp critical faculties. Her sense of humour, evident from a young age, has grown over the years, and she's able to describe and imitate like a regular stand-up comic. Far more confident than I was at that age, she's got a future ahead that I sincerely hope I'm around to witness.

She's one of the most musical people I know, with so much natural talent, it constantly takes me by surprise. She took violin lessons for four years, then decided to change to the piano! She sang in their school choir for four years, too. She sings like a nightingale and has an amazing sense of pitch.

And so, before I go and pick her up at school to spend her birthday afternoon with her, I'd like to send a special thanks to the universe for blessing me with this wonderful little girl. My life has indeed been made a lot more interesting and exciting by her presence.

My wish for her is that she may live her life with all the enthusiasm, curiosity and fun she currently has, as a 12-yr-old, and that she may never compromise on her sense of self-worth, never sell herself short or dumb down to please anyone, but soar like the eagle she is, living life with joy and love.

I accepted long ago that Sagittarians have a very strong sense of adventure - I've trained myself to say all the goodbyes that inevitably go with redheaded Sags! ;-)

Kissing frogs

And life goes on. At this stage, I need to start my blogs with that phrase! Strange time for me – I’ve been at home for 8 weeks and life is very different to when I worked in my most recent job, at Eurocentres Language School. I can now see how that one change became the catalyst for quite a few others, and I have to say that almost every one of those changes was positive. Yes, I’m still unemployed and yes, I do need to find a job as soon as possible, and yes….. the end of November is going to be a very sobering experience as the usual monthly overheads loom, with my income limited to some gigs and some piece-meal work I’ve picked up. I guess we’re about to see the quintessential stuff hitting the fan. Hectic!

And yet, coexisting with all of the above is an amazing set of circumstances: I can honestly say I’m in a much better space than I’ve been in a long time. I’ve been swimming a lot and the results are far-reaching. I’m enjoying the feeling of working in a disciplined and committed way towards a goal, the physical effects are inspiring, and it seems to be affecting my overall confidence. I feel like I’ve rediscovered myself. Many years ago, exercise played a huge role in my life, but somewhere along the line, I lost it. Life happened, as they say: I got married, became a mother, did the crazy juggling act of being a working mom, struggled for 7yrs to make a troubled marriage work, got divorced, spent the next 10 years in different phases of survival mode, and when I looked, I had gained 19kg! Yes, right now, I’m 19kg heavier than when I got married. How the hell did that happen? The journey is what it is. Time and circumstances resulted in my losing my fitness and figure, and now time and circumstances are the very factors enabling me to address this part of my life. It’s not my goal to lose 19kg – that’s unrealistic; instead, I’d like to lose 10kg. I stopped eating bread one and a half weeks ago, I’m very conscious of what I eat and drink, and I’m determined to maintain these lifestyle changes, to move towards my goal.

Some of the changes I had to make, when I lost my job, were not easy. I miss my guitar lessons intensely, but I practise a lot, because I want to keep improving, keep making better music. More than that, playing guitar keeps me in touch with who I am. I’ve been playing guitar since 1978, and it’s as much a part of me as my freckles! Trying hard to score a weekly gig (or two!), but right now it seems to elude me. I’ll keep on trying. Made publicity packs for the duo, including a not-too-bad demo CD, and I need to get more of them out to establishments.

Having so much time on my hands has also brought me back to one of my old hobbies, gardening, and I’m enjoying seeing the results of my hours of work. So rewarding, so full of promise. This is something I’d also like to keep as part of the way I proceed along my journey from now on.

The way I relate to different people in my life also seems to be changing, and I’m at peace with the fact that this is an inevitable part of a more introspective and reflective time. More and more, I continue to find myself less interested in the glitz and glamour, the mindless money-intensive pursuits, and more at home in my own skin, gaining self-knowledge, stripping away the façade, sorting out fantasy from reality.

And so, as I deal with this curious combination of issues – and much more – the best thing that I can do to get through this phase of my life is just keep on keeping on, in the only way I know and choose to operate, believing that everything is happening as it should, that there’s a beautiful plan for my life, that even when it comes to what we want from life, you have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find your prince. :-)

Wide open spaces

Picture: Wide open spaces open up my thoughts, inspire me. Today I did a gig at Neethlingshof Wine Estate, just outside Stellenbosch.

Tomorrow heralds the start of my 8th week at home, unemployed. While I’ve used the time to do lots and lots of things, it’s starting to freak me out that, despite having applied for quite a few jobs, I haven’t been called for one interview, and nothing in the formal job market has come my way. Very sobering. Requires of me some serious sitting down and thinking out of the box, as the saying goes.

There’s a lot on my mind, as usual. I understand that this period without a full-time job is a temporary phase, and that, at some stage in the (not-too-distant) future, I’ll be employed again and feeling the security that goes with it. But right now, to be honest, I’m taking some strain.

I count my blessings every day, as part of the Mind Power exercises I do, and I really do feel blessed in many ways. In fact, an awareness that dawned on me, recently, was that life (a complex system containing many sub-systems) could be compared to the human body: if my foot hurts, but everything else is ok, I just need to sort out my foot – everything carries on as usual; no need to get rid of the whole body! Well, right now, ONE aspect of my life is not right – employment – but everything else is really fine. I’m healthy (except for a sore foot, seriously!), I have a gym membership that I’ve been making use of, I have my family, I have a home, my car works most of the time, I have my guitar and music in general, I’ve been doing roughly one paid gig per week, I’ve been working in the garden, making a visible difference, I’ve been uncluttering my house, room by room, I’ve spent time with some amazing friends, I’ve had some incredible conversations over the past 7 weeks, I’ve spent a lot of time with my 11-yr-old daughter and my 80-yr-old mom, I’ve done a lot of jobhunting and applied for some fascinating positions that sounded tailor-made for me, I’ve put together publicity packs for the Rushin-Bosch Duo and started distributing them to some of my dream venues (to be continued this week).

You know what? I have nothing to complain about! I’ve been included in a part-time project for which I’ll be paid, interviewing land claimants for District 6 and I’ve actually been offered a lucrative New Year’s Eve gig.

But more than all of that – I have so much love in my life: a family relationship that’s been in turmoil for most of this year is starting to heal, and I’m fortunate to have an incredibly loving home base. Without going into too much detail, let me just say there’s a huge amount of love in my life.

I will get through this phase.

When I wake up tomorrow morning, some ideas that have been brewing in my subconscious will have started effervescing.

So now……, off to bed!

Love me, love my blog

Picture: A clever, delightful book I got from a friend when I left the school I'd been working at.

Tues. 02/11/10
In my sixth week at home, I can’t believe I haven’t posted a blog since late September! So much has happened, so many insights gained, routines implemented, goals set, procrastinated matters addressed – I can honestly say I’ve been too busy living my life to blog about it. But, as someone who writes compulsively – like I can’t move through life without documenting it, just in case I need to refer to dates and events at some stage and also because I actually enjoy reading back and seeing how (and if) I’ve changed – I must confess I have been journalling a lot. What’s the difference between blogging and journalling? Two main things, in my opinion: firstly, the size of the reading audience and secondly, the level of honesty. Haha! When I blog, I’m aware that there’s a public readership, so the text is checked and tweaked, then checked and tweaked again, before I press Enter and send it out into cyberspace. I’ve received enough feedback to know that, even though I have just 10 followers, a lot more people actually read my blog.

Thurs. 04/11/10
Journalling, on the other hand, is the process of writing like a waterfall – as the thoughts cascade, so do the words onto the page. I sometimes write so fast, I find it hard to read my entries afterwards. Besides the one mode of writing, writing, writing as I think, recording recent events, observations, opinions and impressions, there’s a second mode, the one where I process issues. I look at a situation in fine detail and I suppose ‘deconstruct’ would be a good way to describe what it is I do. That has got me through many difficult periods of my life, lots of dilemmas, lots of lows. I vent, I rant, I abandon the social niceties. But what a useful exercise it inevitably is! A third mode of journalling, for me, is making lists – all kinds of lists! Haha! ALL KINDS! Lists of things to do, goals (short, medium and long-term), and criteria. I make lists of criteria for everything – my ideal job, my ideal partner, my dream home, my dream car (that’s a short list: a big boot and a CD player!), my ideal gig, etc.

The past five weeks have had an identity like no other period of my life. There hasn’t been one moment where I could have said I was bored. There’s always something to do. And yes, I’ll admit, I like being busy. In fact, strange as it may sound, I like working. Losing my job was much more than just changing my daily routine and losing my income; it took me about four weeks to fully and honestly acknowledge that I needed to grieve, that that’s also part of this experience. I miss my colleagues, I miss the students. I miss that community I was part of for 34 months. But life does go on, and in a way I can’t quite explain right now, I embrace what’s happened as part of the universe’s beautiful plan for my life and I anticipate, with great excitement, the new phase that lies ahead.

Every week has felt different and had a different focus. I’ve done so much, and yet it feels like time has flown. I’ve uncluttered parts of my crazy house, also thrown things out of the shed, taken loads of recycling away and given things to my friend for her secondhand shop. I’ve finally had time to potter in the garden, and that’s become something I look forward to, because it’s so soothing, very rewarding and an activity that gives me space to think – I love the lessons about life that my garden teaches me. I’ve enjoyed watching the grapevine grow and also the way the garden has perked up in response to the attention it’s been getting. I took the bold step of cutting down a pot plant I’ve had since 1984, which recently just died, for no apparent reason. So I cut it down, composted the soil and have taken to chatting to it every now and then. Another plant I got recently as a gift, wasn’t looking too happy inside, so I put it outside yesterday. I’ll keep my eye on it.

I’ve been going to gym, mainly swimming and sitting in the sauna. That’s very therapeutic, and I’m lucky to still be able to do that. Another change I’ve had to implement, in the wake of my job loss, has been giving up my guitar lessons. That was hard for me. But my love for the instrument and for singing keeps me practising. I still have a restaurant gig (Café Adelphi, Sea Point), so it’s important that I keep practising.

On the home front, my being unemployed has had some nice spin-offs for my family, with my daughter being able to skip After School Care most days and my mom having me around a lot more, to chat to and go out with. My son’s been living with his dad for most of this year, so he’s not that affected by my changed routines. But that’s another story!

I spend a few hours every day jobhunting, mainly on the internet, but also in newspapers. I sent an e-mail out to my network explaining my situation and received a lot of replies, some asking for my CV, some pointing me to websites or organizations, and some just wishing me well, expressing their confidence that I’d find something suitable soon. I was moved by some of the e-mails people sent me, and I realized that we don’t thrive only on the tangibles that people send our way (contact names and numbers, websites, etc.), but also very much on the intangibles, the words of support, encouragement and love. And hope.

I’ve sent my CV to a few organisations I like (never done that before!) and I’ve applied for about five jobs. I’ve also registered with a few recruitment agencies.

Shoo, will this blog post ever end? I’ve also been doing more cooking than usual, trying to stretch the resources, and even that’s been fun – I’ve tried some things I hadn’t tried before. Oh, and I read a lot and do Sudoku!

Yesterday I fetched the demo CD my music partner and I recorded at his friend’s house a few weeks ago. Funny listening to oneself: after the first time, I decided I liked only one of the 5 songs, and that I’d use just that one as the demo! This morning, I listened again, and decided that four of them were actually not that bad. Oh, I could write a list of what I feel I could’ve done better, but basically it’s a means to an end (getting gigs), so that’s another project I’m involved in. Burnt copies today and wrote on the sleeves. Tomorrow, I’m printing mini-pics of the duo to put onto the sleeves. In for a penny,…!

I sincerely believe that the inner processes we go through are as important as the outer, more public ones. I also believe that the energy we vibrate with (inner world) has a profound effect on what happens in our lives (outer world). In keeping with that belief, I’ve been doing lots of Mind Power. I’m in my third consecutive week of the new Mind Power programme I drew up for myself. I choose four exercises a week and do them every day. They consist of things like affirmation, visualization, acknowledging and contemplating. I make notes of my sessions, and I’ve found myself sharpening my senses and my skills in this area of my life. Hard to describe to a cynic, but suffice it to say: it works for me. It’s a conscious choice, to view the world in a certain way, not as a helpless victim of circumstance, but as a powerful energy source, one that can influence outcomes. I’ve been following this lifestyle for 7 years now, and it’s taught me a lot, about the power of thought as well as the power of words.

With all this inner work, as well as the other emotional issues related to being unemployed, I’ve found myself becoming a bit anti-social, which is hard to explain to some people. I like being with my family, my best friend, my partner and some close friends, but I really don’t feel like being at large gatherings, especially where I don’t know many of the people. I enjoy watching live jazz, but not necessarily where people are over-indulging in alcohol and becoming stupid. Then I’d rather stay home and read, play my guitar, journal, potter in the garden, watch tv, listen to CDs or do Mind Power.

I always have music buzzing round my head, and I love playing with song titles, believing that for every person and every situation there’s a song title that’s a perfect match. What would mine be, right now?
Some possibilities:
I Will Survive
Imagine
Just in Time
Perfect

But the one I like best, which sums up my headspace right now:
This Could Be The Start of Something Big