To blog, or not to blog?

Picture: Sandi Schultz (on the right) and I, in Belhar, a northen suburb of Cape Town, in 1992!

When I first encountered anything close to blogging, it was in 1998, when I visited my friend, Sandi Schultz, in Los Angeles. She showed me what was then her website: www.cybersass.com. I was fascinated, because my talented, creative friend had found a way to get her writing, her drawings and her opinions - in fact, any information she wanted to share - out to the whole world. I marvelled at the way she'd set it up and how she'd placed different things into sections, like a newsletter. There was a serious side to it, as well, because she'd found a way to get website info to people who'd been sexually assaulted.

More recently, she's started working on a whole website dedicated to this issue. You can look out for www.isaidno.co.za - keep checking to see when it's up and running.

And then in about Sept/Oct 2008, I did some life coaching sessions with Gopal Ramasammy-Cook (www.zestware.com), during which he asked if I'd ever thought of starting a blog, since I liked writing/journalling so much. I felt like I was in a time-warp, but I had to ask: "What's a blog?"

When I came back from my 2-week trip to Brazil in April 2009, I wrote a long letter to all my overseas friends, describing the trip in great detail. After reading it, Sandi wrote to me, saying how much she'd enjoyed it and added, "You really need to start blogging!"

I suppose I'm just one of those people who have to hear something more than once before I act! :-)

And so I Googled "blogging", found a few options, and set one up, all on my own. In fact, setting up a blog is really easy. They take you through all the steps very clearly, and you can't go wrong. There's always the Help button if you get stuck, otherwise it's fairly simple, once you get going.

I loved the absolute freedom of choice when it came to what I'd call my blog. I felt so proud when I'd set it up and there it was...... my very own creation! With my own name and my own password! Like a blank book I could fill with my words any time I wanted to. What an incredible legacy!

I must admit I was very naive when I started, because I thought my blog would be read by people I knew, but it soon became obvious that a lot more than my 10 "followers" actually read what I wrote. I'd meet friends of friends who'd say, "I always read your blog. I really liked what you wrote about...". Gulp!

I suppose in every aspect of our lives, there are times when we question whether the decision or path we took was the right one, and for me it's the same with what I blog about. In what seems like a previous life, I was told that the songs I wrote were "too personal" to sing in public, and yet when I found the courage to perform them at shows, people would come up to me and say how strongly they could relate to what I had written. I came to accept that many of us who write (whether articles, blogs, poems, books or songs) actually articulate what many others feel but can't write. I've had so many women come up to me and say, "The same thing happened to me, but I could never have put it into words like you did." The fact that my songs usually rhyme and often contain humour, makes it even more surprising that certain serious topics find their way into my music.

Recently I took a look at how far across the globe my blog was being read (I LOVE statistics!) and I had a panic attack - are my posts "too personal"? Should I be more cryptic? Should I consciously NOT wear my heart on my sleeve? When I uploaded my first-ever song on the internet, 11 days ago, I went through the same thing. You feel really exposed, really out there, open to criticism.

But I'm an artist. I write, I sing, I play my guitar. I compose music. My lyrics are raw and real, because I write as I experience life. I write as I observe life happening to people around me. Like many artists, I've fallen in and out of love so many times, I sometimes can't tell fact from fantasy. And so I write. I merge the two worlds to the extent where I sometimes dread being asked about my lyrics, because I might feel I have to answer .... and of course I'd answer truthfully.

But I'm a compulsive writer. Before I go to sleep each night, I write. I sometimes fall alseep with my pen in my hand and my journal open next to me, the last word I wrote morphing into hieroglyphics.

And so I suppose, for me, the answer to that question, "To blog or not to blog?", is crystal clear: for as long as I'm able to use my brain and hands this way, I will most definitely be blogging.

Delicious

* Fresh orange juice

* Fresh fruit salad

* A berry smoothie

* Butter chicken and basmati rice

* Thai green curry

* Seed loaf toast with smoked snoek pate, avocado and sweet chilli sauce

* Vanilla ice-cream with strawberry yoghurt!

It's up to you

Picture taken by my daughter, Summer Geffen, on the road near Constantia Nek. Sat 29/01/11.

When life sends you blessings, it's up to you to do something to bless someone else.

When someone loves you, it's up to you to either love them back, or be honest about your inability to do so, and move out of the way to give them space to find a more deserving person.

When you've stretched yourself to the max, either physically or emotionally, it's up to you to do something to restore the balance.

When you've given all you could and not achieved your desired objective, it's up to you to re-evaluate your course of action and make a new decision.

It's up to you to give yourself a second chance - or as many chances as you need - to get to that point where you feel you're living life in a way that makes sense to you, even if others don't quite get what makes you tick.

In any situation in your life, it's up to you to either accept your circumstances, or exercise your right to choose a different option - it's entirely up to you.

Funny thing

Picture: Wayne and I at Baran's Theatre Restaurant, on 6 Dec 2009, at a concert of my originals called "Music Inside of Me".

The funny thing about people's response to the song I put on the internet, a week ago, is that they all call it my "new" song. That makes me smile, because I wrote it 6 years ago, and I've been performing it live for all this time. In fact, for the past two years, working with Wayne, it's sounded pretty much like I sang it on the recording, except that, in the recording, the percussion moved (propelled) the song into the sound it was probably always meant to have.

Makes me wonder about all my other sambas and bossas - ooh, can't wait to record them with percussion too! Some of the titles are "Delighted", "I'm In A Bossanova Mood" and "My Favourite Time of Day". I also really like the lazy blues, and I have a few songs written in that style: "Joe", "Libido Blues", "Lucy" and "Purple". Interestingly enough, all of them have slighty humourous lyrics. That's just the way they came out - something about that groove that lends itself to humour.

Today I'm meeting a jazz radio presenter, and giving him a copy of the "new" song. Once it's been achieved, I'll write more. I'm VERY excited. (No!) :-)

My exciting week

Pictures:Guitarist Wayne Bosch and percussionist Tony Paco.

For those of you who aren’t connected to me via Facebook, I’d like to share with you what’s been happening in the last 7 days.

On Tuesday 18 January, exactly a week ago, I went into a studio close to where I live, and recorded one of my original songs. It was Little River Studio, owned by Ghalik Jacobs, and the song I chose to record was “I’m So Happy Today”, a samba I wrote in 2005. Originally it was going to be just guitar and voice, with Wayne Bosch, but on the day I was introduced to percussionist Tony Paco, who ended up playing on the track, and what a difference he made!

I got to the studio just after 10am and left at about 6:30pm. In that time we’d recorded 4 vocal takes, a few guitar takes and a few percussion tracks. I had to ease myself into the situation, and get my head around the many possibilities inherent in recording. I’m used to performing my songs live with Wayne, and one gets used to hearing things sounding a certain way – either both of us play our guitars and I sing, or he plays and I sing. But in the studio we recorded one track with him playing chords and a second track with him playing fills and licks, as well as a short solo between verses. So cool! Once I’d made peace with the fact that it’s ok to have a slightly different sound on a CD to a live performance, I relaxed into the process.

The first track Tony recorded was the shaker, and that immediately lifted the feel of the song. Then he did a conga track, which already made my heart dance, followed by a bongo track, which was the indisputable cherry on top. In fact, that song will never sound as good without that bright sparkly bongo sound. It’s festive, it’s happy, and it reminds me of Brazil! And, judging by feedback from people, it makes everyone want to dance!

I’ve always been curious about behind-the-scenes things, so I sat through some of the technical tweaking that Ghalik did after the other musicians had left, and I learnt a whole lot.

That evening, Ghalik e-mailed me the mp3 and I had a listen. Well, fussy Virgo that I am, I heard all kinds of things I wanted changed, and sent one of my anal e-mails to him, listing the changes, in point form! After some correspondence, he advised me to not only listen a few times, but to let as many people as possible listen and give me feedback. I e-mailed it to some close friends and waited for their feedback. I told him I was keen to put the track onto my Facebook wall, and he suggested I check out Soundcloud. On Thursday night, I uploaded my song onto www.soundcloud.com, and a whole new phase of my music journey began. I put the link onto Facebook and people started responding.

And then the momentum started rolling. My brother-in-law, Theo, does a bit of a guest slot on Heart Radio 104.9FM (in Cape Town) some Sunday nights, where he and another jazz lover take a selection of their private CDs to the studio and play their choice during Clarence Ford’s show. Well, right at the end of the show, they played my song!!!! 5 days after it had been recorded! And now, other exciting things are happening, about which I’ll write once plans have become reality.

I’m so glad I chose that particular song. I’d wanted to record a tongue-in-cheek, lazy blues I’d written in 2001, called “Joe”, but a very good friend, Zenariah, convinced me to do “I’m So Happy Today”, and what a good decision that was; the song is full of optimism and joy, excitement, hope and love; it’s a beginning-of-the-year song, but I think it will have resonance throughout the year. When I listen to it, it makes me smile, and I hope it has a similar effect on others.

Suffice it to say that I am VERY excited, and I am full of ideas about what to do next. The big dream is still to record and release a full album of my originals. That flame is burning more brightly today than ever before.

I feel incredibly blessed to have produced this recording with three fine people, each one a master of his craft, and to be surrounded by the love and support of my family and friends.

2011 – I am SO ready for you! What a great start!

My first original song on the internet!

http://www.soundcloud.com/trudy-rushin/im-so-happy-today-mp3-3

Much more than a wish

Yesterday I took my car (once again!) to the mechanic, who lives two roads away. Walking back, I detoured to the corner cafe, where I bought the newspaper and some orange juice, my favourite drink.

The main aim was to read the Career Times section, for jobs, so I opened it and started reading while I was walking. I felt that something significant lay inside the paper, especially for me. And there it was, in black and white; not a job, but a quotation, one that hit me in the solar plexus, as it dealt with something I've become increasingly aware of about myself, something I started addressing immediately after reading the quotation.

I've decided that this will be one of my arse-kicks for 2011:

"A goal without a plan is just a wish"
Antoine de Saint-Exupery (author of "The Little Prince")

I know it's only January/Don't you worry, don't you worry!

As the new year gets off to a sweltering start in Cape Town, with everyone complaining about the recent heatwave, may I take this opportunity to remind them that seasons are cyclical? Last year in January and February, we also had very hot weather! In two months' time we'll all be wearing different outfits, shielding ourselves from the nippy autumn weather, and then we'll hit winter, be miserable and complain about the rain, and then spring will either be too late or too much like summer, and then it will be summer again, more heat, more fires, more complaints. Maybe we need to deal with the transcience of this thing called time, this thing called life?

Just needed to get that off my chest. Thank you!

Into my fourth month at home, going through a decidedly different phase. I'll be honest, I never thought it would take me this long to find a job. Many layers to this experience, not all of which are blog-appropriate, so I'll stick to the ones that are. Some days I'm full of energy, buzzing around doing twenty things at once, and on other days, I surf the internet, answer e-mails, do laundry, potter in the garden, but by the end of the day, I can't account for hours of that day. It's like time just slips away. Slips away. Sometimes my significant other asks me what I've done for the day, and I actually don't know!

But let me contextualise this: my children weren't with me this past week, which meant it was that kind of week, where I could go for days on end not cooking a meal, just eating whatever's around. One night this week I had ice-cream for supper. Yum!
Remember when you were a child, and you dreamed about how cool it would be to be an adult, without anyone telling you to eat healthily, not drink hot and cold things at the same time, etc? But then you grew up and you automatically followed all those rules, somehow having internalised that being an adult meant doing the right thing all of the time? Well, because of my part-time status in most parts of my life (haha!), I have the chance to break all the rules, do silly things like have ice-cream for supper and, every now and then, stay in my pj's all day. It's unbelievably cool! My 80-year-old mom lives in the granny flat on the premises, and I think she sometimes wonders where she went wrong! :-).

I've been feeling really low, recently, immensely frustrated at how long it's taking to find a job. People who've known me most of my life think of me as a teacher, which is definitely a role I played for many years. When I was updating my CV last year, I realised that my working life had totalled twenty-five years! For about six of those years, I worked as a manager as well, with the last three being exclusively management, no teaching whatsoever. And you know what? I actually don't want to teach again. Let me put it this way, that's not what I'm aspiring to. I would take a teaching position to put food on my family's table, and to honour my financial commitments that don't magically stop when you lose your job. Even the companies I went to, explaining that I'd been retrenched, and submitting the relevant documents, still send me letters threatening to send the sheriff to my place of work. Eish!

And then there's the perception of me as stubborn, because what everyone else is telling me is so obvious (see previous paragrah) is not so obvious to me. And yes, I won't rule out the fact that I might have to take a teaching post for a while, to stay afloat, but my heart's not in it.

My last stint in the Education Dept lasted 18 months, and I realised then that, after having been in the private sector for so long - seven years! - it wasn't an easy transition adjusting to the bureacracy, etc of a state institution again. In fact, those eighteen months gave me an opportunity to measure how far I'd moved away from a certain mindset that unfortunately tends to prevail amongst many (not all!)government employees. That mindset that says I can do as little as I like, I can stay absent, I can under-perform on a daily basis, but I will still get my full salary, all my benefits, my short working hours, my bonus, my housing subsidy, oh what the hell, I'll just underperform for the next decade or so, and then I'll retire with my nice, fat, middle-class pension. And no, on a matter of principle, I don't support performance-based bonuses, because that means I actually have to be accountable, prepare my lessons, prove that I have educated and not spoonfed my learners; oh no, on a matter of principle, I definitely don't support performance-based bonuses. In fact, I really like the IQMS system, where my equally-underperforming friend and I can just write glowing reports for each other, sign on the dotted line, and we're all set till the next round of "peer appraisal". Yup.

My goodness, I didn't know all of that was going to come out!

And then there are people who know me in the context of my most recent job, where I managed the daily operations of an English language school that taught adults from all round the world. I was good at what I did, I loved what I did, and I took my role seriously. I loved the industry, the students, most of my colleagues (let's be honest!) and I grew in my role, changing in that space of time to whom I am now; I'm not the same Trudy I was in 1983 when I entered the teaching profession, not the Trudy I was in 1996 when I took a voluntary severance package, nor am I the Trudy I was when I re-entered the employ of the Dept in 2006.

I've had to deal with a lot of change, over the years, and it's funny how the different "communities" we belong to handle the changes we go through. Fundamentally, I believe people sincerely want what's best for me, but there's not much room in their neat little solutions for what I'm really about, at this particular stage of my life.

And so I've come up with what I choose to call "The Rushin Solution". Haha! It's so bizarre, you'd think I was crazy! And so I've set my heart on something, which, even if it takes me two years to bring into being, I believe I have a very good chance of turning into a huge success, not only for myself, but for Cape Town.

I have an original song, a samba, called, "I'm so happy today", which I hope to be putting on the internet really soon. These are the words of the catchy chorus:

I know it's only January
Don't you worry, don't you worry
I am gonna go go go and never stop
And though it's only January
Won't be sorry, won't be sorry
This is gonna be the year that I get to the top!

Happy New Year - 2011, here I come!

Photo: Woke up this morning to rain and thunder. Wow! Happy New Year to you, too, Mother Nature! Went outside to take photos of my garden. This pot of Impatiens plants is turning into such a beautiful sight!


I have this belief that whatever you're doing at the stroke of midnight, when a new year starts, could have major significance for the year ahead. Which is why I'm SO glad I was singing and playing my guitar at a gig at midnight, at that magical moment when 2010 slipped into 2011.

What were you doing?

I did my second consecutive New Year's Eve gig at Myoga Restaurant, in the Vineyard Hotel in Newlands, one of Cape Town's southern suburbs. Last year I worked with Wayne and this year with Rudi Byrnes, as Wayne had already been hired. What a lovely gig! The staff once again treated us very considerately, and I just enjoy the way they go about whatever they do. On the two occasions I've worked there, I've felt like I was part of a well-run operation; there's an unpretentiousness that surprised me last year, since it is a very classy 5-star restaurant. Well done to Cecil Monk, the manager, for running a tight ship, and to everyone on the staff for coming across as genuinely friendly and happy to be doing what they do. One whole year later and Myoga has that same warm, welcoming atmosphere. 10 gold stars from me!

I've done gigs (including some recent ones!) where I've received no help at all from the staff. They'll stand and watch me carrying my speakers, my amp, etc. from my car to wherever I need to be, point out the trolley and the lift, but do nothing to assist. I suppose they take one look at my car and conclude that they probably won't get much of a tip from me. Not necessarily so! But how would they know? And then there was the embarrassing time that I genuinely had no money on me other than what I'd been paid for the gig, in big notes, and I had no change to tip the guy who had helped me. I apologised profusely and consoled myself that he probably got lots of money from tourists at the hotel on a regular basis anyway. (!)

I really enjoyed last night; even though it was a four-hour gig, the time just flew. I enjoyed playing my guitar for almost every item we did, both instrumental and vocal, and it seemed like we had quite appreciative listeners - although that's not always easy to ascertain in a restaurant setting. I thoroughly enjoyed singing, and could feel the ease of performing things we'd practised as a duo, as well as things I'd practised a lot on my own. I enjoyed playing the basslines of certain standards, as well as tackling tunes I'd never done at a gig before (e.g. "What are you doing new Year's Eve?" and "Aguarela Do Brasil"). Nice to feel myself moving forward with my craft, my passion.

We botched the countdown, and I felt terrible. Something went awry at the last minute, and when I looked at my phone, we were 8 seconds into the new year and the staff had started bursting streamers and popping champagne. So I did the next logical thing - I started singing Auld Lang Syne! (Memo to myself - the next time, get someone else to watch the clock from about 23h55, and ask them to signal me when the countdown is supposed to start!)

I was grateful that my friend had lent me his car, as mine was once again off the road. Also glad that my children were sorted out for the night, and that my mom was home and safe.

I have (as usual) so much on my mind! The start of a new year is like the MOTHER of all new beginnings, and I'm filled with ideas, plans and mental To Do lists. When I have some uninterrupted solo time, I'll write more. Lots of ideas around taking my music further.

But right now, it's back to Mom-mode. Promised my daughter we'd bake a chocolate cake. Yum!