Taking it personally

Written on Monday 25 July 2011

Watching the disturbing video footage, on SATV news last week, of a Gauteng (a province in South Africa) school principal viciously and repeatedly beating a Grade 8 pupil with a piece of garden hosepipe raised a lot of emotions and memories in me. I became acutely aware of how experiences that we try to sweep under the carpet, file away until we can process them “properly” (if at all), can come back to us with even more ferocity, when triggered by something else.

I was taken back to my eighteen months spent teaching English and some other subjects at a nearby high school. I vividly recalled one particular day when I’d gone to the principal’s office, outraged after my class of Grade 8 pupils had complained about an assault by a teacher on one of their classmates. The teacher had thrown him to the floor, hit him with a walking stick and kicked him, shouting obscenities, in full view of every other child in the class! And then, having meted out this brutality, he’d proceeded to teach his lesson.

The principal listened to me, with a neutral but indulgent expression on his face that gave little indication of what his reaction would be. To his credit, I was further humoured to the point where the teacher was called in and the three of us had another meeting. Once again, I pointed out how inappropriate the teacher’s actions had been, how damaging and humiliating for the child and, of course, that it was illegal! I pointed out that the teacher could face a huge fine, at the very least, but that surely he was putting his future as an educator at risk. The teacher was asked to apologise to ME, but that was not the worst part: the principal’s last words to me were along these lines: “Please don’t make too much of this; today it’s Mr X, tomorrow it could be me.”

At that same school, a certain male teacher would boast, in the staffroom, about how he regularly held boys up against the wall and punched them with his fist. I would express my shock and disgust, and warn the teacher that it would take just ONE pupil to get his parents to take legal steps, for his career to be in jeopardy. He would laugh at me and say smugly, “Daai ouers VRA dan vir my ommie kinders to moer!” (Crude Afrikaans for: Those parents ASK me to hit their children!) So you have so-called ‘middle class’ teachers working at township schools, abusing children physically – and, by implication, psychologically – and capitalizing on the ignorance of many of the parents in those communities, when it comes to children’s rights and the overall provisions of our country’s constitution, with its strong human rights emphasis. I often wonder how – and if – those same teachers discipline their children at home, and how they’d react, were their own children to be on the receiving end of such brutality at school. But here’s the rub: most middle class teachers send their children to better schools, where there IS a culture of learning and there IS a human rights culture. Of course, this is everyone’s right. The continuing disparities in education in our country is a completely separate topic, meriting urgent scrutiny by government and other role players. I really wish teachers were as militant about education-related inequalities as they are (justifiably) about salary-related matters.

It breaks my heart to see fellow teachers, with whom I studied and protested, with whom I sat for weeks on end in mass meetings in the early 1980’s, boycotting lectures in solidarity with others engaged in the anti-apartheid struggle in our country, reduced to what so many of them have become. Every single child in our country deserves an excellent education, by dedicated teachers, teachers committed to lifelong learning, themselves, and teachers actively pursuing lifestyles that their charges would want to emulate.

I remember asking a colleague, when I was newly at that school, what he had done over the weekend. He said he’d sat in his garage. “Oh”, I said, “doing what?” “Drinking!” he said, as though I was stupid for not having known such an obvious thing! I bravely tried to steer the conversation towards sobriety. “What else did you do?” I asked, hoping he’d use the cue to redeem himself. Again he looked at me like I was a moron for not knowing what weekends were all about, and said, “Well, when the beers were finished, I went to buy more beers!” “Oh”, I said again, my optimism flagging, “and did you spend time with any of your friends?” “Ya, of course”, he said (by this time convinced there was definitely something wrong with me), “they came over later in the afternoon and brought a case of beer, so we cooled off in the garage.” I seriously deserve a medal for my belief in humankind, as once again I ventured, albeit a lot more feebly, “So, were you guys watching sport?” “No”, he said, visibly exasperated, “we were watching people walk past my house!”

I was hopelessly outclassed. How would I ever attain such enlightenment?

But the incident that the news footage brought to mind even more painfully was something I witnessed a few months ago. At the time, I intended writing to the local newspaper about it, but I never did. Today I want to write about it.

It was round midday one Saturday, and I was driving along the M3, a scenic route through the southern suburbs, to fetch my son at Jazz Workshop Music School. After passing Chart Farm, I followed the curve of the road and started my climb up the hill behind Wynberg Park. About 100 metres ahead of me, I saw a white vehicle (those family-type 4X4s) parked on the left verge of the road, with a man standing outside, doing what looked like knocking something inside the bonnet. As I got closer, I noticed that his arm movements were big and forceful, and thought I’d never seen anyone hit anything in an engine that hard before. When I got even closer, I realised that he was not knocking something in his engine, but that the side door had been slid open, he was holding a belt in his hand, and he was beating, viciously and mercilessly, shouting (in Afrikaans) like a maniac, a small person cowering inside. It was summertime, and I saw a lot of pink skin, so it must’ve been a child dressed in shorts and a t-shirt.

I was driving alone, and I was terrified. At least one other car’s occupants noticed the incident at about the same time, slowed down, like me, but then, like me, continued driving. Traumatised and confused, and feeling I’d let the victim down, I pulled off on the descending side of the hill, now in Edinburgh Drive, and waited for the vehicle to pass, taking out my notepad and pen to write down the vehicle registration number. A vehicle like the one I’d seen drove by a few minutes later, and I wrote down the number, but couldn’t make out whether it was the same person I’d seen earlier. And then a few more similar vehicles drove past and I decided that I’d lost my moment to do the right thing, and that handing in the wrong person’s number and falsely accusing someone could have serious consequences.

I continued driving to town, switched off the radio and thought about that poor child and what his/her life must be like, and how the rest of the day would be for him/her. I thought about that father and child pitching up at a family gathering, a few minutes later, and the child having to pretend that he/she was happy and carefree, as children are supposed to be. I cried and cried. I thought about all the other children in our city, our country, our continent and the world, who have to endure abuse of any kind at the hands of their ‘caregivers’. I thought about the audacity of the man, pulling his vehicle off the side of a busy public thoroughfare and whacking his child uncontrollably, no doubt acting out a script he’d grown up with. What does he do afterwards - put his belt back on, get behind the wheel and listen to the radio? Does he drive in silence, or is the child then subjected to his verbal abuse, his nagging, his ridicule, and his inevitable justification of his actions? The sickest one is, “I’m only doing this because I love you. Someday you’ll thank me for it.” I don’t think so. All that that child wants is revenge, and the hopelessness bleeds onto successive generations.

Someone told me the other day, when I was expressing an opinion about something, “You really need to stop taking everything so personally.”

I’ve never quite mastered the art of turning a blind eye to injustice.

Smattering

Written on Saturday 9 July 2011, 09h00

Sitting at my favourite writing spot at home, squeezing in some writing before the day’s formal demands get hold of me.

Earlier, I was outside, breathing in the new day, when I decided to survey the new-morning glow of the back garden, where I’d done a full-body workout yesterday with a Weedeater. One truth, and only one, descended on me as I stood there: I’m a damned good songwriter! :-)

When it comes to gardening, I’m good at watering, planting the odd flop-proof plant (my garden’s full of Impatiens), sweeping up the leaves and taking photos of the mini-success stories unfolding around me. Other than that, and I say this with no disrespect to my friend who lent me his Weedeater (and shears!), I thoroughly enjoy being in and around my garden after someone else has done the back-breaking work. As soon as I have R200 that doesn’t need to feed my family, my car’s petrol tank or our electricity meter, I’ll PAY someone to clean up the whole place, both the front and back gardens.

Listening to a musician who inspires me in a way that I can only feel, but not adequately express in words – Djavan. He’s Brazilian, from Alagoas, and sings in Portuguese, a language I’m convinced I’m genetically connected to. I understand only a smattering (love that word!) of it, but it sets off something in me that’s hard to describe. NO other language does that to me. In March 2009, when I was in Sao Paulo, I got lost in the city on my very first day. I stood outside a shoe shop, where I was convinced my colleague had walked into and lost sight of her budget, and a few people came up to me and asked me questions, IN PORTUGUESE! I assumed they were asking for directions. It was quite funny, because by then I had learnt a few sentences I thought would come in handy, so I used the opportunity to say, as many times as I could, “Eu fala Ingles” (I speak English). They looked at me disbelievingly, not because the words rolled off my tongue, but because I looked like everyone around me! Funny how visiting that country affected me, my sense of who I am and of course, my love for Brazilian music, especially the bossanova and its close cousin, the samba.

Time to go. I think I’ll move into the rest of my day by showering with Djavan singing Estoria de Cantador.

Early stages of concert planning

With about two and a half months to go to my concert (7 Oct), I have thus far secured my sound engineer, and contacted the three main musicians I want to work with. So far, only one has confirmed that he's both available and interested, and I'm waiting to hear from the other two. Once I've established the line-up, I'll proceed with my concept, because this event will showcase my original material using different sounds, different instruments, different energies combining on stage - quite a different approach to my previous concerts, which featured either a duo or trio for the whole show.

There's a lot that goes into putting on a concert, and I decided to opt for an October date, rather than September (my initial plan), so that I could do it as thoroughly as possible. Once I've confirmed all the important details, (especially the musicians), I'll start advertising. I have a timeline for all my steps, and definitely want the tickets to go on sale as from the beginning of September. My goal is to pre-sell all the tickets. The Nassau seats about 130, which is not an impossible number.

All my expenses have to be carried by me, personally, and earned back in ticket sales, but I would like to explore sponsorship of some kind. I'll need to get that ball rolling soon, as I want the ticket specs to be handed to the printers by the 24th of August, and I want the sponsors' names to be included.

It's funny - long before I even get to the drawing up of the programme, decide which songs to do and with which musician, I have to do so much else! Getting the charts finalised and copied also has to happen before we get to the rehearsal stage.

Right now I have a cold. It was looming for a while, and I thought I could escape it, but here it is - as debilitating as hell. Can't breathe through my nose, starting to look like Rudolph, and feeling lousy. Head hurts, throat hurts, chest hurts like mad, and I suspect my sense of humour will want to elude me for a while.

I'm actually going to a concert at the Nassau Hall tonight, to the monthly jazz concert put on by Cliff Wallis. Tonight it's pop-jazz singer-guitarist Richard Caesar in the first half and a more mainstream jazz band in the second. Should be quite a treat. Of course, I agreed to go before I caught this cold.

Sniff, sniff, sniff.

Concert News

Picture by Lavonne Bosman: Charles Lazar, Wayne Bosch and I at Baran's in March 2010.

I’ve just secured the Nassau Hall, in Palmyra Road, Newlands, for a concert on Friday 7 October 2011. I’m SO excited, because I have fantastic plans for this one - which musicians I want to work with, and how I want this concert to be different from my others.

ORIGINAL CONCERTS TO DATE:
In November 2005, I did a three-concert series, called “TIME WITH TRUDY”, at a quaint art gallery in Buitenkant Street, Cape Town. On each night, I performed two sets of my own songs, accompanied by the magician himself, HILTON SCHILDER, on keyboards, melodica, guitar and some interesting Khoi instruments, including a bow. That series was organized by Dala Flat Music, a record label I’ve enjoyed a positive association with.

In December 2009, I did my next original concert, called “MUSIC INSIDE OF ME”, at Baran’s Kurdish Restaurant on the historic Greenmarket Square, in the centre of our beautiful city. Accompanying me were WAYNE BOSCH (guitar) and CHARLES LAZAR (double bass). As a novelty, and by way of giving him some exposure to the world of public performance, I featured my son, NICK GEFFEN (aged 14 at the time), on drums, on five of the items.

I followed this up with a second concert with the same name, at the same venue, in March 2010. Once again, I worked with Wayne and Charles. Both concerts were recorded by Andrè Manuel, of Dala Flat Music.

I’ve since put together a mini-CD, called “EXTRACTS”, of five songs recorded at the second concert:
1. My Favourite Time of Day (2007)
2. Lucy (2010)
3. Slide Across The Moon (2001)
4. Unafraid to Fall (2007)
5. Wendy Gave Me A Lavender Plant (2006)
Anyone interested in buying the CD should e-mail me at rushintrudy@yahoo.com.

My next concert, in September 2010, was also held at Baran’s, and this time I had other artists doing the first half. This concert was called “MUSIC AND WORDS”. The guest artists were singer-songwriter, PETER LAVEY, vocalist MEGAN FRANCIS and poet, DIANA FERRUS. I did a duo set of my originals with Wayne, and this time we included a few songs we hadn’t performed before. Unfortunately we didn’t record this concert.

So, now that I have a DATE and a VENUE for my next concert, I have my work cut out for me. There are always pros and cons to selecting dates, but I had to work with the availability of the venue, as well as my own time parameters. This date is in the week of the school holidays, so that could rule out some people. The main thing is, I have eleven weeks in which to put it all together. Yay - a lovely project to sink my teeth into! This fuels me.

All I can say is, watch this space…….!

Home

Yesterday I went down to the internet café, after about a week, and found an inspirational (“Thought for the day”) e-mail from my best friend. The piece dealt, quite poetically, with the issue of hard times, the writer concluding by saying that, no matter what she’s going through, the one thing she promises herself is that, every single day, she will write.

In the same uncanny way the odd horoscope seems to tap into our circumstances directly, this piece felt like it was meant for me.

La Vem a Baiana, a samba sung by Jussara Silveira, playing on my laptop now – such a cool song! :-)

Back to the point - things have been really tough for me, financially, and I’ve come face to face with some of the difficulties many people in our country have to live with all the time. Some of the decisions I have to make, make me laugh at the irony and ridiculousness of it all, because I have to choose between equally important expenses, in order to make the money stretch. One of the main lessons this time of my life is reinforcing in me is to take an interest in people around me and to lend a hand where I can, because everywhere around us, people are in need. Even the regular “beggars” at my door know that, when I have, I give.

But here’s the point: at the end of every day, I write. With a pen. In a book. Old-school, as they say. I write whatever needs to come out. Sometimes I record the day’s events in point form, because I’m tired or don’t feel like writing a lot, but most of the time I write more reflectively, introspectively, exploring below-the-surface issues. I also write descriptively, and sometimes when I take my old journals out and read my entries, the descriptions take me right back to the events and I laugh at some of the strange things I’ve experienced over the years!

Writing has been my way of getting through all the difficult times of my life. I write because nothing else gives me the release that writing does. If I were to lose the use of my hands, I’d find some other way to put words down on paper or on a keyboard. Writing is such an intense part of my life, it’s far more intimate than a lover.

Much like my songwriting, my journalling is a form of narration, but also catharsis, with the former merely written more artistically.

Yesterday I listened to a recorded interview of John Cleese, British actor and comedian (star of, amongst others, Fawlty Towers, Monty Python and more recently, the movie, Spud) by Cape Talk Radio presenter, John Maythem. The most interesting thing Cleese said, in my opinion, was that the creative process was a spontaneous, emotional thing. He said we’re encouraged to be logical, to follow the rules, and that men, especially, found this a constant pressure in their lives, while women seemed to find it easier to be less logical and more emotional/spontaneous, and therefore were often more in touch with their creativity. This was in response to a question about how he and his fellow scriptwriters had come up with a particular skit. He started by saying that there were no rules or formulae, and that the creation of anything worked a lot more spontaneously, more randomly, starting with a spark of inspiration which could come from anywhere. As a songwriter who’s written about topics as diverse as love, divorce, abortion, friendship, infatuation and libido, I could most definitely relate to what he was saying!

This morning I got an sms from a friend who’d been on my mind a lot recently, and I was so excited, but also frustrated because I didn’t have airtime to reply. I felt myself veering towards brooding about what I didn’t have, so I willed myself in the opposite direction, focusing on what I did have: I decided that, as the one thing I had loads of was TIME, I should do something with my time that would put my feelings out into the universe. I put on about 45 minutes of my favourite music and danced, danced, danced! I danced to celebrate the beauty of friendship, the new day and LIFE, with all the potential it held for each one of us. Afterwards, I had a shower and put on a bright yellow T-shirt, because that’s how I’m feeling.

I’m a typical Capetonian – when the sun shines, I put on a T-shirt, and when it rains, I put on a pot of soup!

Listening to Melanie Scholtz’s album, “Connected”. Velvet voice, clever lyrics, great band (The Love Apples).

I’m often struck by how extremely disparate the different aspects of one’s life can be: yesterday, amidst all my unemployment-related difficulties, I used my last airtime to send an sms in response to a radio competition, and to my surprise (but not entirely, because I’d felt the success and experienced the future phone call when I sent off the sms – this is something that’s hard to explain, but I’ve always had it), I was one of the winners. Yay! I won two tickets to tonight’s premiere of the movie, The Bang Bang Club, courtesy of Cape Talk Radio. It’s in Brackenfell, and right now I have NO idea how to get there, but between now and then, I’ll have sorted out all the niggly details. Don’t you just love winning things?! I saw some footage from the movie on last night’s documentary tv programme, “3rd Degree”, and I now know what it’s about. I also know that it’s not easy viewing, definitely not escapist theatre, and that I’m probably going to be closing my eyes - and sometimes my ears - when it gets too hectic, but in the end, I will have had an experience that will have impacted on me in some way. Let’s face it, if the recent Pirates of the Caribbean could have impacted on me, then there’s no doubt that The Bang Bang Club will! :-)

Listening to Michel Petrucciani’s Live in Tokyo album. His composition, “Home”, is one of the most moving pieces of music I have in my entire (not huge) CD collection. Played superbly by himself on piano, Anthony Jackson on bass and Steve Gadd on drums, this hauntingly beautiful piece starts off with a single line melody on piano, played loosely, then grows into the trio doing a laid-back bossa, and moves into a swing, with lots of vibrant energy, completely different to the mellow beginning. At the end of the piece, they revert to the lead melody in a gentle bossa, with a splendid flourish of an ending, followed by the final notes on the high end of the piano. Stunning!

Time to go! So much has happened since I started writing. The rest of the day awaits!

My talk at the Women's Wellness Breakfast on Sat 2 July 2011

IMPORTANT LESSONS I'VE LEARNT (AND AM STILL LEARNING!) ALONG MY JOURNEY TOWARDS LIVING MY AUTHENTIC LIFE

Many years ago, a wise woman said to me, “Live your truth, and the universe will support you.” That was about 10 years ago, but it was one of those things that took root inside of me, and subsequently became my philosophy.

Someone once asked me – and today I’d like to ask you - “If money were not an issue and failure not a possibility, what would you spend your life doing?”
In my case, there was no hesitation; my answer was, “Music.”
Knowing what you’d like your life to be about is just the beginning, but it’s a good start.

I’ve decided, because I am so passionate about the guitar, to use the six strings of the guitar to share with you some of the insights I’ve gained, over the past 9 months, during which I have been trying to support myself as a self-managing musician.

1st string: E – It adds an interesting aspect to whatever’s played, has a high pitch that can be quite irritating, is often the one that breaks under pressure. It’s nice to have it as part of the full set, but when you have to do without it, it’s actually possible to play your guitar just fine that way! From my perspective, having played the guitar for 33 years, this is the only string you can do without and play complete songs without being seriously compromised.
E = Everyone else’s expectations of us
I’ve come to understand how strong the messages are that others give us about ourselves – our parents, our siblings, other family members, our teachers, our colleagues, our friends and even our partners. The ones we were given repeatedly as children seem to stick like Super Glue. As adults, we tend to live our lives according to some script we were handed that we’d unconsciously been rehearsing for years.
One of the biggest challenges for me, in trying to live my truth, is seeing how many of my choices and patterns come from trying to live up to other people’s expectations of me. Acknowledging that they’re not always right for me, and accepting that I have a right to choose a different path, is both liberating and scary. It’s also important to be understand that dealing with this issue is not a moment, but an ongoing process.

2nd string: B – This one you can’t do without. In fact, the second string is a very good string for playing the melody line, for playing or taking the “lead”. It forms an essential part of most chords, and provides a clear treble sound that indicates the highest frequency or purest sound of the chord.
B = Believe in yourself (your judgement, your instincts, etc.)
Another aspect of this journey I’ve come face to face with is that it is a very personal thing and, if you want others to believe in you, you HAVE to believe in yourself. Once you’ve identified what is authentically YOURS – YOUR dream, YOUR truth, YOUR path, YOUR authentic self, call it what you like – you have to focus on it and go for it, despite what others say. Well-meaning people will give you all kinds of advice, often trying to dissuade you from your chosen course. It’s easy - especially when the people talking to you are assertive or persuasive, or are people you’ve listened to for years, having them question and override your decisions - to give others the benefit of the doubt and allow them to convince you that you should be doing something else. The people who don’t understand will label you stubborn or selfish, but you’ll soon figure out who you can and can’t share your ideas with. Practically everything that people say to us is a lot more about them than us. Stephen Covey, author of “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People”, says, “We see the world not as it is, but as we are”.

3rd string: G - this is the string that I have the most trouble with, the one that seems to slip out of tune the most. Whenever I pick up my guitar after it’s been in its case, this is the one I have to tune. At gigs, after the breaks, we check our tuning, and it’s always the 3rd one, the G-string, that needs to be brought back in line. I turn the tuning peg and listen to it, and once I’m satisfied that it’s where it’s supposed to be, I go ahead and play my guitar. But after a few songs, when I check the tuning, it’s lost its tautness, and I have to tighten it again. If I don’t, then everything I play will sound out of tune, wrong, unpleasant. To produce the sound I want, I have to take a few seconds and get the string to sound absolutely right. It’s something I’ve dealt with for a long time – might just be peculiar to my guitar, but this is the only one I’ve used for the past 14 years.
G = Guts (Courage)
This is an area I struggle with a lot, no matter how many times my plans work out, no matter how much experience I gain along the way. Even though I know I’ve been a musician for so long, of course I can do it, I still have to keep psyching myself up to go out there and do it. Marketing oneself takes a lot of guts, especially when you do cold, face-to-face marketing, where rejection could be immediate and ruthless. I have times when my courage is low and other times when I feel I could conquer the world. Having a close circle of people who support your journey, through thick and thin, helps when the hard work does not automatically translate into success.
When you’re putting yourself out there, if you’re not doing so believing in yourself and being courageous, it will come out that way, and you diminish your credibility, your ability to inspire confidence in people.

4th string: D - This string is the one that visibly perishes the fastest. If you’ve used a guitar for a while and not changed its strings, you’ll see that the 4th string looks worn out and needs replacing. The reason is that this string is also played in most chords and even though it’s one of the three bass strings, it is the thinnest of the three and takes a lot of strain. Often, replacing just this one can make the guitar sound like you’ve replaced the whole set of strings.
D = Dream
For me, as for many people, my main dream has been the same for many years – to be “a successful, full-time musician, living my passion and living my truth”. Over the years, I had a day job as a teacher and then as a manager, and that kept the music side of my life a part-time, semi-professional hobby. I’d drive to work, day after day, going over this affirmation and others, doing visualizations about my dream. But some days I’d forget, I’d be too busy, or there’d be so many other demands on me, that the dream would start to perish. Sometimes we put our dreams away, and, like a wedding dress worn decades ago, we take them out every now and then, look at them and wonder….. And then I was retrenched, and I had nothing standing in the way of my dream. And yet, it wasn’t that easy. I’ve always had a dream, and it’s very important to have a dream. If you’re not sure what yours is, think about my first question. The dream is the start. I can’t imagine not having goals or dreams to work towards.

5th string: A - This string is not quite the biggest or the deepest of the 6, but it’s very, very important – the 5th and 6th strings are like two lotto winners, equally important, sharing the jackpot. These two strings provide the bass notes to your chords, rooting them. Without them on your guitar, you’ll have a serious problem – you’d probably have to cancel your gig or borrow someone else’s guitar, if you don’t have spares.
A = Action
It’s all very well to have a dream and to believe in it, but without the necessary action, that’s all you’ll have – your dream. I read in a newspaper article in January, “A dream is a goal without a plan.” It was a quotation by Antoine de Saint Exupery, the writer of The Little Prince.
I’m very good at making detailed lists, planning a course of action, but my plans often remain on paper – works of fiction. I’ve learnt that when I apply myself, when I take action, I achieve success, when I don’t, I stagnate.
But more than that, I’ve learnt that after that initial step, I need to do the next step and the next step and the next step. FOLLOW UP & THEN FOLLOW UP & THEN FOLLOW UP…
Sometimes the opportunities are there, just waiting for us to follow up with ONE more action step.

6th string: E - The deepest of the 6 strings, the one that gives most chords their root, their frame of reference, their point of departure. The bass line can be played alone, moving a piece of music in a particular direction. Again, you might as well cancel your gig if you don’t have a 6th string. Everything you play will sound like it’s lacking something, like there’s a vacuum of sorts. The sound produced by this string drives the piece of music, giving it its underlying identity.
E = Energy
At the root of everything on this journey, is your energy. This is something that can’t be faked. There are different aspects to energy, but basically I’m talking about things like physical, intellectual, psychological and emotional energy. When your energy’s right, you’re most likely to succeed. Each of us knows when we’re feeling on top of things, when our energy’s “on”, and we all know when we’re not! Identifying the things and people that drain our energy - and then doing something about it - is another challenge for us. Before you embark on your journey, especially the more public aspects (like advertising, promoting, etc.), make sure your personal ENERGY is good and healthy, in order to give others the right message and to predispose yourself to succeed.

Our energy is what makes us unique. We owe it to ourselves to surround ourselves with people, things and activities that fuel us, that give us good energy, and to consciously reduce and (if possible) eliminate the energy drainers.

I’d like to conclude with the question I began with: If money were not an issue and failure not a possibility, what would you spend your life doing?

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I started my presentation with one of my original songs, “Joe”, a tongue-in-cheek song about a man who caught my attention in a crowd. It’s a blues, and is quite humorous. At the end of my presentation, I gave my latest song, “Today I opened my eyes”, its first public audience. It’s a ballad I wrote in June this year. It starts out sadly and bleakly, then moves steadily towards a very optimistic, hopeful conclusion.

After the event, a few women came to chat to me, and the consistent feedback was that they really liked my lyrics, and would’ve liked to have heard more of my songs. One woman said she liked the fact that my songs told stories.

The organizer, Inez Woods, had afforded me a wonderful opportunity to promote my music, so everyone received a demo CD with my song, “I’m So Happy Today” in their goody bags. To my delight, during my Q&A session after my presentation, quite a few people expressed disappointment that there was only one song on the CD.

I really need to get that official debut CD recorded and released!

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Gadget-wielding ego-blogger

GADGET-WIELDING MOI
Tomorrow my hands and forearms are going to be very sore, in fact I can already feel the stiffness setting in. The reason is that I spent the morning gripping and manipulating something for an extended period of time. It’s something I’d considered for a while, but kept putting off, deferring to other tried and tested methods, like getting someone else to do it for me, but today the offer was made yet again and I decided, what the hell, I’d give it a bash.

What exactly am I talking about? Yes, you’ve guessed it – for the first time in my life I used a Weedeater! My whole backyard is now freshly cut, with unmistakable signs that the gadget used was wielded by a novice. It reminds me of when I used to cut my children’s hair, when they were toddlers. I’d stare in disbelief at the visibly skew fringes and wonder how I could justify keeping them indoors for a month, while the hair grew out.

EGO-BLOGGING
I discovered yesterday just how much of one’s (my) ego is involved in this whole blogging business; I checked my blog stats, and I realised that what I’d been interpreting as the number of times my blog had been read was in fact the number of times my profile had been viewed. That figure was 816. And here’s where the ego comes in – I beamed with joy when the number of blog reads came up as 3,363! The number of reads for last week alone was 253. Yes! That’s more like it! (I found it very interesting that the blog post with the highest number of reads was the one on Westerford High School’s 2009 prizegiving event.)

“Interesting” coming face to face with one’s fragile ego. This is not something I can escape or deny, so I’ve learnt to live with it and channel it. Let’s face it, everyone likes to feel noticed, acknowledged. That dynamic is an intrinsic part of being a performer, I’d say. In fact, performing is a very risky way to go about getting your strokes, because your audience is not always going to love what you’re doing. So many lessons I’ve learnt along the way I could only have learnt by experiencing. Every single time I prepare for a performance, I do some version of psyching myself for it, and I’m sure this is something I share with most other performers.

SING-ALONG AT OLD AGE HOME
Two days ago I went down to Douglas Murray Home for the Aged, about 5km from where I live, and did a sing-along with the residents. A friend had asked me to visit someone there on his behalf and sing to her, but that didn’t feel right to me, so I arranged with the Home’s management to sing to everyone, at a time that fitted in with their routine. While I was getting ready, I decided that doing a sing-along would make much more sense, which was what I did. There were some people who chose not to take books, for one reason or the other, but the general response was fantastic! A few of the residents are amputees, so they’re wheelchair-bound, and others just stayed in their comfy chairs (afternoon ‘chill’ time) all the time. This meant that no-one came up to sing through the mic, and I had to lead the singing for the entire session. But did they sing! Wow! I hadn’t done a sing-along in quite a while, and it was exciting to unearth my books, go along to a group of seniors, and just do it. Indescribably satisfying! I love singing and playing my guitar, people in institutions often have lifestyles that are bereft of pleasure and levity, music (I sincerely believe) is the ultimate universal language, so what an obvious thing to do. But the most important ingredient here is that I don’t sing TO them – it’s an inclusive activity, with them calling out their favourite songs from the index, and everyone singing together. I have no words for how that makes me feel.

This is not about leaving a gig feeling I sang well or got paid well – this is something else. My journey as a musician has led me to collaborate with people who GET this side of me. For many years, guitarist Keith Tabisher and I have gone to different churches and done these sing-alongs at fundraisers or Christmas lunches, mainly with seniors. We’ve also done a few sing-alongs at people’s houses, at birthday parties, etc. I put the first book together in 1997, and have since come up with three more, but the hot favourite is “the purple book”. We’ve done some sing-alongs where we’ve used two books, then we’d have people requesting, for example, “Number 30 in the yellow book”.

But this week’s visit and sing-along touched my heart deeply. Seeing people in their twilight years singing old songs (mostly love songs) with expressions on their faces that tell their own stories, brought a lump to my throat a few times. Occasionally, someone would say out loud, “This song was playing when my husband proposed to me” or “My late husband loved this song”, and I was made acutely aware of how raw and unbounded certain things are under certain circumstances. I’ve always been fascinated by group dynamics.

And so, with renewed belief in music as the ultimate stress reliever, happiness bringer and bridge builder, drawing people closer, regardless of age, class, religious affiliation or any other artificial barrier that negates our similarities, I end this post with a commitment to do at least a monthly sing-along, going to various places where old people live together in institutions throughout my city.

Maybe I should seriously consider reprinting the books in large print.

The ultimate full stop?

Sunday 3 July 2011

Picture: I took this about two weeks ago, on a rainy day. Cape Town winter in all its glory. Brrr!

Why do I blog? Why do I enjoy it so much, and why do I look forward to recording my thoughts in this way? I’m not quite sure, but I think it has to do with a number of things – firstly, I enjoy writing, playing with words. Secondly, I now know that people enjoy reading what I write. Thirdly, and here’s the rub, I suspect, it’s a form of putting down, for posterity, a side of myself that I’d like to leave behind. Is this bordering on the morbid? I don’t think so. Death is as much a part of life as the common cold – in fact, for anyone lucky enough to escape the latter, here’s a newsflash: you’re not going to be that fortunate with the former! Death is the ultimate full stop – or is it? Depends on your view on what happens afterwards.

Someone I know chose to end his life, exactly one week ago, and his memorial service was held yesterday. Since I heard the news, his family have been on my mind: his wife, his daughters - who, in recent months, I’ve come to know and become fond of - and his family of origin, not to mention all the other people whose lives he touched in some way.

I think the details of someone’s death shape the way we deal with that loss – when it’s an old person, there’s a certain inevitability, one has a feeling of closure, and people are heard to say things like, “She lived a full life” or “He had a good innings”, etc. And even though the person is sorely missed by the loved ones left behind, there is a level of acceptance. For those of us who are middle-aged (so strange to realize that I now fit into that category!) and still have one or both parents, it’s an issue I’m sure we all think about every now and then – I’d always wondered which one of my parents I’d have to part with first, and it turned out to be my dad. When he died, I accepted that he’d been sick and that that had caused his death, but over the years I’ve thought a lot about his lifestyle and wondered if he’d have lived longer had he made healthier choices. He died at age 74, and I wish he’d been around today, 5 and a half years later, for so many reasons. I didn’t realize, when he was alive, how much like him I was, and now I’m sorry I didn’t acknowledge and celebrate that more, share more of my life with him.

When there’s death after a long illness, that has its own peculiar set of issues, including relief, I would imagine. It must be very hard to see someone you love suffering, hanging on for months and months, going through all the phases of deterioration before your eyes, knowing that there’s going to be no healing, and that the only outcome is death. That person’s quality of life is reduced to almost nil, while those around, deeply affected, go about their daily lives desperately wanting the limbo to end, one way or the other. I would imagine there’s a fair amount of guilt experienced by people who have to nurse chronically or terminally ill family members for extended periods of time – I’m sure there’s a yearning for normality, for fun and laughter, and that the guilt arises because that yearning presupposes the absence of the dependent person.

Accidental death hits us hard, because the suddenness of it knocks the wind out of us, flings us into a state of shock, causes us to look at our lives differently, even if only till the shock wears off and we slip back into the routine of our normal lives. Death as a result of violent crime must have its very own set of issues, as well. This is something we read about in the newspapers, and people’s traumatic experiences become statistics, until we’re touched by the same horror, ourselves.

But how families deal with the suicide of a loved one has been on my mind this past week. How do you make sense of it? How does a child handle the fact that that was a choice made by one of her parents, one of the people whom you assumed knew all the answers and looked up to as role models? If I sound judgmental, that is definitely not my intention - I don’t know the specifics, so I’m unaware of what pushed this person to commit such an extreme act. All I can say is – if you haven’t walked in someone’s shoes and been fully aware of all the things he was dealing with, you can’t say what he should or should not have done. Nothing gives me the right to say he was wrong to have done it. As I said, all I can think of is how the close people in his life, especially his wife and children, his brothers and the rest of his family of origin, must be feeling now, the questions they must be asking themselves. For a child to lose a parent is profoundly traumatic as it is, but to suffer that kind of loss must be so much more so.

I got the news late on Monday evening, and my children were with me when I read the sms and reacted with shock to its contents. I told them what had happened and we ended up having a long discussion about dealing with life’s stresses and strains, about exercising all options, about never giving up, no matter what, about being prepared to talk about your most embarrassing situation to someone you trust, with a view to getting through and past the problem, no matter how long and inconvenient the road may be. Of course there was a lot I couldn’t discuss with them. They’re aged 12 and 16. As open as I am with my children, I always keep things age-appropriate.

For example – if I believe that euthanasia is acceptable, under certain circumstances (as I do), then why do I struggle with suicide as one of a set of options? I’m not religious, I don’t believe in Heaven and Hell, not to mention Purgatory, so what’s the issue here?

Personally, I can only base whatever I believe in, on this topic, on what I’ve experienced thus far. Yes, I’ve been in extremely unhappy situations, where I’ve wondered how I could carry on living under those circumstances, and yes I have wondered….. But somehow there was always an alternative that entailed giving tomorrow a chance. I extricated myself from an eight-year-long, intense relationship that had robbed me of my spirit, but guaranteed me material comfort, and moved on to live a life without the emotional blackmail and daily suspicion, drama and unhappiness that had characterised that time of my life. Aaah, blissful relief! Eight years – and what seemed like a lifetime – later, I uprooted myself from a marriage that had long ceased to be mutually fulfilling, where all kinds of boundaries had been crossed and respect had got lost along the way. Having come from a divorced family, it had never been my intention to walk that same path, and yet I did. I stayed longer than I should’ve, always giving others the benefit of the doubt, lacking the confidence to walk away, not trusting my instincts, not listening to that little voice inside my head, but when I did, I knew it wasn’t the easiest path I’d chosen. And now, 11 years later, I know for sure that that was the best thing I could’ve done. Yes, once again I incurred extreme material loss, but time has taught me that material things will never be more important than the people issues. You can always earn the money yourself and buy the things you like, and you’ll be much happier away from the toxicity of the dysfunctional relationship.

In any part of my life, when I feel I can’t breathe, when I feel my energy is being depleted, my oxygen levels dropping drastically, I know it’s time to exercise new options. I know myself well enough to know that it will always entail giving tomorrow a chance. Living my life incorporating the exercises and practices of the book, “The Art of Possibility” (Ben Zander and Ros Stone Zander) has intensified my curiosity about what tomorrow might bring.

In fact, I’m still in bed! Let me get up and see what today has in store for me!
Oh, wait, I have to write about yesterday’s event – looks like another day of two blog posts!