Foregrounding

I’ve been doing some thinking about my goals for 2016. In fact, I’ve been thinking about goals, in general. In recent years, I’ve become more aware that goals fall into different categories. For example, “Buy a washing machine” is a goal that can be ticked off as achieved, on one day. You’re not going to be dealing with too many other aspects of buying the washing machine, especially after you've got it – you do your research (online or by phone), you go into the shop, you buy it, it gets delivered and installed, and you’ve achieved your goal. Tick.

But there are other kinds of goals, like “Have better boundaries”, that, although they may appear as one of your goals at the beginning of a year, will be just the start of a journey. For that first year, you have a 12-month practice run, during which you’ll have a few hits, but also a few misses. After that year, however, you have a better grasp of the matter, and you’ve learnt a couple of things about yourself and what you’re capable of. 

As part of my transitioning from one month to another, I’ve been looking through the photos I’ve taken this month. While doing so, something occurred to me, which I’m going to allow to inform my attitude and behavior for the rest of 2016: sometimes you take a photo of a panoramic view, but you place something that’s special to you in the foreground. Without your necessarily having planned it, the camera focusses on whatever you’ve foregrounded, and gives everything else a secondary focus.

One of the reasons (excuses) we tend to give for not achieving our goals is that we’re ‘too busy’, or that ‘life is too hectic’. But if you think about it, when we’re really fired up about something, nothing can keep us away from it. So if we’re allowing ourselves to be side-tracked by seductive yet mundane activities like watching tv or hanging out on social media, there must be some other reason we’re subconsciously keeping ourselves from working towards and achieving our goals. Something two life coaches have told me about is the phenomenon of ‘fear of success’. Makes you think, doesn’t it? Does this apply to you?  

So, the conclusion I’ve reached, after considering the way cameras automatically sharpen whatever you’ve placed in the foreground, is that I will stop blaming everything else in the frame of my life, all those the beautiful things that will always be there, just waiting to distract me, for my failure to achieve my goals. I will consciously foreground the things that I allege are important to me. I can still look up at the sky in awe, marvel at the clouds, and feel a sense of wonder at the vastness of the universe. But, immediately after doing so, I can focus on what I’ve placed in the foreground, whatever’s right in front of me, in the sharpest focus, remember why I placed it there, and do the necessary work towards achieving whatever I’ve set myself as a goal.

One month into the year, I’m more excited than ever about what lies ahead.     

Day Fourteen of the new school year

It’s hard to believe this is only the third week back. In some ways, it’s been typical of the beginning of the college year, but in other ways, completely different. What I can say, based on January alone, is that 2016 is going to be a year of CHANGE.

Tomorrow we say goodbye to a colleague who’s needed at a different campus. Not unusual in the TVET college sector. In the Fundamentals Dept, which comprises English First Additional Language, Maths Lit, and Life Orientation, lecturers are shifted around campuses, as needed. If you can’t meet your quota of classes at your base campus, you lecture across campuses. It seems strange when you’re new, but you get used to it.

But, back to the topic of this interesting new year. Sometime last year, I went back to a previous practice of writing my goals on posters and putting them up in my bedroom. I see them every day, can’t avoid them, and I’m forced to think about them and keep them in my conscious mind. I also keep an open mind about opportunities that come my way, and find myself doing whatever I can to move myself towards my goals. As this year progresses, I’ll be able to give you concrete examples, as I continue to manifest my dreams.

Actually, here’s one: on Sunday, I made a poster that spoke about a goal as though I’d already achieved it – a Mind Power technique. It said, “Getting a car was easier than I thought! I am so happy with my new wheels!! I love new beginnings!!!”. Two nights ago, I put a post on Facebook, asking people to help me with my car dilemma. A Fb friend put me in touch with someone, and today I almost bought a car. Everything happened so fast, that I started feeling really stressed! In the end, I asked for a little more time, because the car I seemed to be about to buy wasn’t the car I‘d really wanted – it was a car the salesman seemed a bit too keen to persuade me to buy.  

But, in the process, I learnt a whole lot – especially about how little I knew about buying a car, as well as the importance of having a knowledgeable person with you. Came home, and did what the screenagers do  - I went online, to the site of the reputable company the gentleman above worked for, and actually found what I wanted.

31/01/16 – Not completing above post, but just want to add that I should conclude the deal in the week ahead, i.e. the first week of February 2016. I am VERY excited (and ever so slightly freaked out!). Wish me luck! 

Hello, 2016!   

Day One of the new school year

Today I went back to work after a glorious 4-week holiday, during which I had a real rest. Even though I put on my annual concert, sang at a wedding, and kept up my weekly restaurant performances, I was able to enjoy the complete change of pace that the holiday afforded me.

Going back today, I was reminded of all the things, big and small, that had irritated the hell out of me last year, and I made a mental note to, while being true to myself,  develop a thicker skin. Not always easy.   

Of course, getting up early felt so wrong, after all my late lie-ins, and taking the train, with all the other early risers, felt just as weird. Because the pupils hadn’t started school yet, the trains were unusually empty, and I even got a seat.

Sitting in a staff meeting and realizing the issues I’m going to have to deal with for another year – some completely unrelated to our core role as educators – made me wonder…..

A year ago, someone reminded me that I was lucky to have a job to return to, and I’ve not lost that perspective. I am lucky. I teach interesting young people, I teach a subject I love, and I teach just a few kilometres from where I live. My classroom is surrounded by grass, I can look outside and see trees and plants, things that fill me with peace.

On the other hand, I have to put up with a lot of secondary smoke, from students (young adults) and colleagues, who refuse to stick to the demarcated smoking areas – something that infuriates me, because it affects my chest, my sinuses, and my voice. I hate the smell, and I hate the fact that my health has to be compromised by the bad habits of others. I understand that smoking is an addiction, and I feel sad that it’s such a hard one to break. Most of the time, to be honest, I just feel pissed off that, because nobody wants to offend the smokers, the rest of us have to put up with it. It’s just one of the reasons I wish I worked in a more progressive, health-conscious environment, where people were more mindful of each other, more in touch with issues related to cancer  prevention, and basically just more law-abiding.   

Anyway, I think I’m also grumpy because I have to change my routine back to a more regimented one, when my free spirit wants to soar – for just a little longer.

Sandwiches made, clothes ironed, hair washed (to save time in the morning) – off to bed I go. New challenges tomorrow. I pray I’ll stay true to my many promises to myself. 

                                      Trees outside my classroom. 

Journalling to my children

In December 1994, when my first child, Nicholas, was born, I received a gift from my friend, Sandi Schultz, which was to become an intrinsic and intimate part of my journey as a mother.

Unlike other new moms, who’re convinced they’d have no time to journal, I was excited about starting a brand new journal, detailing whatever I could of my baby’s growth, whenever I could. The book itself was beautiful, and I felt wonderful that, at such a big moment in my life, someone I loved so much knew me well enough to give me a new journal, giving me a new beginning for my new beginning. As someone who’d been passionately journalling for 18 years, buying a new book every year, and recording my own life as it happened, I loved the idea of this new aspect to my writing life. I had no idea, then, just how wonderfully interesting and intense both journeys would be: being a mother, and journalling to my son about his life.

In the beginning, because I had to figure it out as I went along, I divided the book into objectively recording things (birth time, weight, etc.) – on the left hand side – and writing freely (which I do best) – on the right hand side. What can I say? I’m a Virgo, and we have to organize everything around us (in ways that make sense to us). As time went on, or maybe it was when I reached the end of the first book, I changed it to all free writing – so it was a mixture of recording his milestones, and my observations about, and opinions on, everything.  

Over time, I wrote about everything – special moments we experienced as a family, big events around the world, all the firsts, all the sicknesses (and meds!), and all the doctors’ names. When I went back to school, we had a day care mom (a mother of one of my pupils), and sometime later, we took him to a day care centre/pre-school. All his special events there were recorded, all his friends’ names, his teachers and their little quirks, his stories he came home with, his gymnastics classes, …… and all the time I was writing, writing, writing, fascinated by this little person I had given birth to.

A few things that stand out for me, when I think about this world of journalling to one’s children – when he was a baby, I’d even draw his little mouth and indicate where each new tooth had come out! When he was at primary school, he’d ask me to read little extracts of his young life to him. He always knew I was writing about his life, and he always knew he could ask me at any time to read to him from the journals, and we both knew that at some stage I’d give him the books I’d written about his life, from my perspective.

Another thing that stands out is that I’d always write the funny little things he said, so the book is filled with humour. However, because I wrote about everything, I had to include a few painful things. In October and November 2000, I had to write  about two very difficult matters – one profoundly more painful than the other. About a month after we’d told him he had to repeat Grade R, and was not moving on to primary school, along with his friends, we had to break the news to him of our divorce, something which was to change our lives in ways we could not have imagined, at that time. A theme that flows throughout my entries was that I loved him and was proud of him. I always wrote as though it might be the last thing I wrote to him, and I wanted him to have no doubt that he was deeply loved, I accepted him for whom he was, and I respected his choices (as he grew older).

When he was 18, it was time for me to hand over the journals. I couldn’t, and we agreed that I’d do so when he turned 21. On 21 Dec 2015, he turned 21. It took me a few days to read them all again, to write a final ‘handing over’ entry in the last book, and to wrap them as a Christmas gift. I had no idea I’d feel so emotional, parting with those journals. They’d always been mine, my writing, my stuff to look through whenever I wanted to, my very personal account of my child’s life, from my perspective. I cried when I re-read sections, I cried when I wrote the last entry, and I cried all the time that I was wrapping them.  I knew I’d blog about it, so I took a few pics of the books before wrapping them, to attach to the blog.  

I know I’m going to buy a new journal, to keep writing to him, in his adult life. He can have it one day, either when we agree it’s a good time, or when I pass on to the next realm.  

With my second child, I was well into the habit of journalling to my son, so I started writing to her long before she was even born. I started writing to my daughter, Summer, when I was just four weeks into the pregnancy, so I wrote to her throughout my pregnancy – a very special time in a woman’s life. Over the years, I followed all the same patterns I’d followed with my son’s diaries, writing about the milestones, the funny things she said, and of course, the difficult things like the divorce. In both children’s diaries, I documented our post-divorce living arrangements, always trying to keep things real, but age-appropriate. In fact, one of the reasons I decided to give them their diaries when they were much older, was that there were some tough sections to read.

What can I say? I’m still writing in my 17-year-old daughter’s latest journal, and I plan to buy a new one for my son. All I know is that writing is one of the ways I make sense of life, and recording life as it happens makes a lot of sense to me. I’m fascinated by the passage of time – and I’m always aware of how we waste time. Writing, for me,  makes me feel like I’m keeping track of what happened and when it happened, so that I can prove to myself I didn’t waste it. Silly? I find it immensely satisfying to read old journal entries, because we forget so many details. Sometimes I gain a healthy sense of perspective when I read old entries. You forget, when you’re at a low point, just how effective you are when you’re strong.

In parting, I’d like to say this: it’s never too late to start writing to your loved ones. Life has not blessed me with a financial legacy I can leave to my children – although, give me some time and I’ll sort that out, too – so my true legacy lies in other things: how I’ve lived my life, the values I’ve taught them, my original music, but most of all, the journals I wrote to them from when they were babies.

With love

Mom

Trudy       

Boundaries, Part 2

I had, as my focus for 2015, the slogan, “Better boundaries, better bounty”, and it’s something I need to keep working on in 2016. ‘Better boundaries’, for me, has a very broad scope, including accepting that I can’t save the world single-handedly; in the workplace, not  constantly volunteering, while others sit back and reap the benefits. In my personal life, it includes managing my time better, getting enough rest, and knowing when to stop being a martyr – because I’m also important.

But there’s one extra dimension, this year – I intend to stop humouring assholes. 

In my song, ‘Delighted’, which I composed in 2007, I wrote:

“Was raised to be polite, be nice and sweet, don’t fight

When people walked all over me, I’d smile with all my might

Held me back for long, ‘cause I couldn’t see

That I was not being me”

Different situations, over the years, have caused me to become better at standing up for myself, although I’ve always been uncomfortable in the face of injustice. At high school, I was kicked out of a musical, because I dared speak up when the director humiliated the pianist, in a rehearsal. Nothing gave him the right to speak to her the way he did, and I told him so. It turned out to be ok for him to humiliate a pupil, but a crime for me to have stood up for her. He later came to my classroom, asked my teacher if I could leave the room,  and told me, because he was All-powerful and Untouchable, that I was no longer in ‘his’ play. I cried, and was bitterly disappointed – at not being in the musical, but also that, even at such a ‘good’ school, you could get asshole teachers.

Incidentally, I’ve been in education for over 30 years, and I’ve learnt that the profession has no shortage of that type. When I hear of teachers abusing their authority, I get really angry. I believe that everyone should adhere to a common set of rules governing ethical behavior, and that accountability should be the order of the day. For as long as I can speak, I will continue to speak out against injustice and corruption, when I encounter them.

But, back to the topic of assholes. I’ve encountered them in the workplace, in the music world, and in my personal life.  In fact, one of the main reasons my social circle has shrunk, in recent years, is that my tolerance for these people has become very low – I’d rather spend a night at home, watching a movie, reading, or being on the internet, than have to put up with certain people and their backwardness.

Included in this bunch are racists, sexists, homophobes, and xenophobes. In Cape Town, where I’ve lived most of my life, there’s a high incidence of Islamophobia. You’ll find the same people who wouldn’t dare make an anti-Black comment, happily saying Islamophobic things, because they’ve been saying them all their lives, and because the people they socialize with endorse what they’re saying. I regard myself as a child of the universe, so when you bad-mouth anyone, merely because she belongs to a certain ‘ethnic’/religious group, I feel hurt.  

So what does all of this have to do with the lyrics above? I was raised to be polite, and with it came a distorted focus on not making others feel bad, no matter what they said or did. As well-intended as it was, it paved the way for all kinds of inappropriate behavior that we never spoke about, because it wasn’t polite. So, when Uncle X slipped his hand into a cousin’s halter-neck top, while ‘tickling’ her, and touched her pre-teen breast, and we told an adult about it, we were told he probably didn’t mean it that way. What message did it give us, as girls? No-one will believe you when you talk about awkward things, like wrong touches. Believe me, there are all kinds of  repercussions to raising girls (or boys, for that matter) without healthy boundaries. Trust your children, believe what they tell you, and you’ll be able to guide them through some of the more complex issues later on – because they’ll feel safe enough to return that trust, knowing you won’t judge or belittle them.

In the music world, a so-called friend will walk into a venue where you have a regular gig, smile and chat with you, then have a discussion with the manager or owner, suggesting you be fired and he be hired in your place. I’ve had at least three incidents of this nature since 2009. And no, it’s not ‘how it goes’ – I refuse to accept that. But my upbringing makes me continue being nice to these people, despite their back-stabbing tendencies.

In my personal life, the same person who put me through a vindictive, avoidable legal process last year, has the gall to suggest we meet for coffee. Why would you even think that a possibility, knowing I haven’t had a lobotomy? And anyway, isn’t coffee  something you have with friends?!  

All too often, I find myself pandering so much to people’s insecurities, that I curb my excitement about really cool things happening in my life. Why do I do that? Some of the people I’m talking about are around my age, in their fifties – when exactly are they planning to grow up? Why can’t you just be happy for me, without taking it as a personal slight? Why do I have to dilute my enthusiasm because you might feel bad? We’re not at primary school anymore.

So, in 2016, I am going to stop playing this silly game – I am going to continue being selective about whom I hang out with, because I have no time for people who just want to break others down, nor for people whose sole focus in life is material possessions and the perceived status they bring; I am going to stop trying to give egotists a soft landing everytime we have a conversation; I will not intentionally offend anyone, but I’m going to stop being apologetic around certain people. I don’t live my life in competition with ANYONE – that’s not my style. So if you think I’m sharing something with you to show you up, you need to broaden your horizons and your frame of reference. Preferably, soon. 

      My daily reminder that everything has a beginning, an end, and another beginning,....

Keep on blogging

Early in 2015, I made a decision to blog more frequently than I had in 2014. Looking at the stats now, I see I went from only 14 posts in 2014, to 30 in 2015. Good! Let's see what I can come up with in 2016. All I know is, I think about blogging every day - I just get swallowed up by life's minutiae, and when I look, another day has passed. I've actually started writing  a list of topics/issues I plan to blog about, and when life finally grants me that delicious combination of time and space, I take out the list. 

Wish me luck! I have so much to say, all the time - my everyday demands just keep getting in the way of my blogging. 

Imagine if I could blog for a living. How absolutely magical wouldn't that be? 

          01/01/16. Hello, New Year! I'm readier than I've ever been for a whole new beginning.