Friday 16 Sept 2016

                                                                                                                                    

You know what people like me always seem to have too little of (besides chocolate)? Time! But right now, I have three glorious hours to myself, and all I’m going to do is write. Yay!!!

I’m on a day’s leave, which I’ve basically dedicated to ‘Mom Duty’, for my younger child.

I’m sitting in my car outside her school. It’s a big day for her and her peers. Firstly, it’s the final day of September mock exams, which brings them to just about four or five weeks until their study break before their final matric exams! But today is a Big Day for another reason – tonight is their Matric Dance, a rite of passage they spend many years looking forward to. Not without controversy, it’s nevertheless a huge event in the lives of those who do attend.

Three years ago, my son decided against going to his matric dance. Despite all his teachers and friends’ attempts at convincing him otherwise, he spent the night alone in his room, organising his paperwork, filing stories he’d written, and excitedly planning his future. It was the way he chose to mark the end of his high school years. That was what made him happiest, and that’s what he did. A sworn socialist, he also hated the thought of all that money being spent on an event of that nature. I have a very simple approach to my children’s decisions – if your decision is different to the ‘norm’, is not hurting anybody, and is an expression of your individuality, so be it. I may have determined 50% of your genetic make-up, and I may have guided you through your formative years, but who you develop into, as a young adult, has to be as unencumbered a process as possible. From what I’ve experienced, when you reach the end of high school, your essential personality and life direction are pretty much established. Life may add years of experience, some layers of complexity, and an appreciation of nuance, but you remain basically that same person.

What I do remember distinctly, though, is my daughter, four years his junior, stating unequivocally that she was definitely going to her matric dance.

So, here I am – doing one of the things I love most: writing. I’m sitting in my car, under a huge tree, with the rain pelting down. The sound of the rain on the car’s roof is loud and tinny, but it’s surprisingly comforting, making me feel cocooned from the rest of the world. I’m in my own world, a wonderful world of uninterrupted typing of thoughts as they tumble into my consciousness. Wonderful. Bliss. I fully understand why my son schedules his life around his writing. I know how compelling it is. He writes fiction, and he’s brilliant at it. Not my forte.  I have a style that’s more like journaling. In my dream home, one day, I’ll have a special writing space.

So why am I sitting here for three whole hours, when I could have driven home and enjoyed  hot cups of tea and some toast? The same old story – I’m basically saving petrol. This is me making lemonade from yet another batch of lemons. About three months ago, something happened – a decision by someone who’s had a destructive effect on my life for many years – which threw my finances into absolute chaos. Even though forthcoming events will ensure that this phase of scarcity is temporary, I am still reeling from this latest round of having the rug pulled out from under my feet. But one thing I’ve become very good at is choreographing steps that keep me on my feet, regardless of how that rug is pulled. I have learnt the art of survival. (“Keep dancing” is one of my 2016 goals.) For me, it’s a combination of using my skills and talents to earn extra money (as in, live music performances) and asking for help. 

I’ve also learnt that there are so many things that one can’t control. If you lend money to someone, and they promise to pay it back by a certain date, you simply cannot depend on that. And most of the time when that happens, people don’t tell you beforehand, so you wait until the day it was promised, and sometimes even a few days later, before you actually broach the subject.  By then, your other commitments are clamouring for attention, and your personal track record has been compromised.  

How does all of this relate to my daughter’s matric dance? Well, these things cost money. We had ‘Plan A’ perfectly worked out, but that was before the aforementioned rug incident. An additional setback, from said recidivist, added pressure I could have done without, at this important time in my daughter’s life. I am being as unspecific as I can, but the details explain why I am sitting in my car, right now, saving petrol. This whole thing is depressingly familiar  – it haunts me like a theme to a horror movie….. you hear the strains and wonder what the hell is coming next, how your life could possibly be made more difficult, this time. What has not already been done, to keep you from moving forward?  

But I am a survivor. And nothing is more important to me than my children. I would do anything for them. I would sacrifice any personal comfort for their happiness.  This is something I know how to do. And I’ve become good at it. Even while I’m going through the difficulty, I’m excited about the future. I plan to live long, so my time to spoil myself will come. :-) The truth is that life always sends me sunny days, even in winter. It’s never all gloom and doom. I have enough happiness and magic up my sleeve to sustain me. It’s like my secret pamper pack – my private little stash of feel-good supplies.

Besides the tickets, all other matric dance expenses are around the outfit. My daughter has known for years what she wanted to wear. She found a young designer, who came highly recommended. Her rates were reasonable, and she lived close by. At our first visit already, I could see she was perfect. She listened well, had a calm, no-nonsense way of doing things, and the dresses in her workroom and the pictures of her work, displayed on her website and in her workroom, said it all. We’ve basically seen her three times – once when we met her and she took the measurements, once for a fitting and some minor adjustments, and once for fetching the dress. I love it!  She’s a great seamstress, and her admin is on point! (Can’t undo the Virgo, sorry!)

Then there were the shoes, which my daughter sourced cheaply, a la ‘Plan B’, some make-up and some jewelry, including a headpiece for her flaming mane. What can I say? She’s my angel, and she’s going to look like a forest princess. My heart swells with pride.  Her cousin is doing her hair, which is a real blessing to us.

So, once again, despite all the challenges, we will achieve the goal at hand, and all will be well, just like we kept reassuring each other it would. Life has not been easy, for many years, but I have an irrepressible spirit. I’m like a cork in water – it’s just not possible for me to stay down. I believe that every hardship I encounter is temporary. Approaching life that way tips the scales towards success.

I also have a host of angels in my life, people who believe in me, and who are ‘the wind beneath my wings’, people who have helped me through the dark patches, with their love, their words, their energy, and sometimes their material assistance. Because of my loving network and my unsquashable optimism, I will always succeed. I will always rise, after falling. I will always find my smile. I will always sing another song. And I will always have a word of hope for someone else who might be navigating her way through the darkness, because I’m familiar with that neck of the woods.

I’m just lucky to have found a few paths that lead back to the light.

Peace

                               Taken one beautiful morning, as we were leaving home.

Mind Powering

Written on Wed 07 Sept 2016

So here I am, finally with a free evening, wanting to blog, a hundred topics on my mind, and I have no idea what to write.

Ok, here’s one. I’ve gone back to doing Mind Power. I’ve written about this before. I did the course in 2003, and have gone on and off the programme (on my own) over the years. I remember when I did the course, I thought I’d stay on the exercises forever. But of course life happens and one gets busy, and one loses focus. I also remember the facilitator, Robin Banks, telling us to do the exercises as part of our daily routines, and not only in times of need.

He knew what he was talking about. Maybe, had I listened, I would’ve been further along my journey.

The irony of my on-off relationship with Mind Power is that I really like doing the exercises, and I ALWAYS get results. Sometimes the goals you work towards in your exercises are realised only after months, even years, but sometimes it’s a really short turnover time, like days.

So what are the exercises I do? My daily routine consists of four exercises, each lasting five minutes:

1.       Contemplating one of the six Mind Power rules (You can Google them)

2.       Affirmation (a short statement clearly articulating your specific goal as though you’ve already achieved it)

3.       Acknowledging past successes (sets up an energy vibration of success in you)

4.       ‘A creating period’, where you visualise (picture) and ‘seed’ (feel the emotions of) your goal; it’s like running a movie in your head, like you’re experiencing the goal having been achieved.

The crazy and wonderful thing about the last exercise is that, by the time you actually achieve your goal, it feels familiar, because you’ve already gone through the achievement in your mind so many times.  

Here are some of the principles on which Mind Power is based, that impress me:

-          Your brain can’t tell the difference between something real and something imagined

-          The more frequently you think about something, especially with emotion/passion, the more likely you are to attract it into your life

-          At any moment of any day, your mind is full of thoughts – you can choose to leave them all scattered, or you can choose to focus  them in such a way that your life gains impetus and direction

-          You can consciously choose to get rid of negative thoughts and replace them with positive thoughts

-          You can insert any thought into your mind, at any time, in any place 

I knew, from the time that I sat through the free introductory lecture, that this was something that I would love, and I did. I still do. In my family, we even use ‘mind power’ as a verb, as in “I’m going to mind power our new car.” And, by the way, that’s what I did. I achieved my cool car and my cool job through Mind Power. It’s all about energy vibrations, and focusing your thoughts in such a way that you affect the vibrations, and strongly tilt the likelihood of something happening. This is how I’d explain it: you basically focus your thoughts so strongly, that a whole lot of other elements come together and somehow work together towards achieving your goal.

As a writer, I also like the freedom to make up my own affirmations (positive statement of your goal as though it’s already been achieved). Here’s one of mine: “I vibrate with an energy that is empowered, empowering and that attracts success. “   

One of the things I really love doing is singing my affirmations. That makes the five minutes go really fast, and I get to try variations on a melody, while repeating the affirmation.

Recently, I rediscovered how cool it is to get all my exercises done while driving – it passes the time, and it’s really fun. So that’s what I’ve been doing. A whole new take on surviving traffic jams (which I sit in on a daily basis). Many people enjoy doing Mind Power while exercising – it’s a natural high.

So, on Day Four of my current Mind Power programme, I am seriously ‘mind powering’ a goal that will radically alter my life. I feel that, this time, not only will I stick to the programme, but I will achieve my goal. Of that I have absolutely no doubt.

On 1 May 2015, I set myself a 100-day challenge to dance, to start regaining my fitness, and to feel   better about myself and about life. 16 months later, I’m still dancing. Still loving it!

In 2003, I wrote a quirky song, called Mind Power. Here’s the first verse:

Mind Power in the shower

Mind Power when I blow-dry my hair

It doesn’t take an hour

Mind Power means you live like you care

Mind Power

Always start my day with

Mind Power

Just can’t stay away from

Mind Power

It’s under my skin………

So, as you can see, Mind Power is something I highly recommend. Basically, you can do it anywhere; you’re thinking thoughts anyway, so you might as well focus them on one of your goals. Try it. Only 20 minutes a day, and you can split the exercises up throughout your day. Whenever you have five minutes of free time, do one of them. See how your life changes after thirty days. I recommend the book, “Mind Power into the Twenty-First Century” (John Kehoe) and also recommend that you attend the next free introductory lecture in your city. Then do the course. You won’t regret it. Also, Google Robin Banks, the Mind Power man. He’s a phenomenal example of what he teaches.

I may not be materially successful right now, but a lot of who I have become, over the last 13 years, is as a result of Mind Power. I’m talking about acquiring and shedding attitudes and habits, as well as operating my thought life in a certain way. It has given me greater clarity and much better boundaries.

What can I say? It works for me. 

Friends

Written 30 August 2016

I remember, when we were children, we always had lots of friends. As teenagers, too, no matter where we lived, friends were always around. My mother welcomed our friends, and now that I’m a parent, I understand that that was one way of keeping an eye on us, but not in a suspicious way – more like knowing who your children are hanging out with, and staying connected.

Of course, I didn’t know then that some friendships would last well into my adult life. I don’t think I realised either that one’s cousins could end up being one’s most loyal and supportive friends. I understand that this is not always so, but in my case, I’m really lucky. Somehow, I’ve always had a lot  more contact with my maternal cousins. Having said as much, I feel the same love and warmth towards my paternal cousins that I do towards my maternal cousins. The truth, though, is that I share a lot more memories with my maternal cousins, most of whom we’ve lived with, at some stage of our lives. And, when you think about it, it’s the shared experiences that form those bonds.

Aside from cousins, one of my oldest friendships is with someone I met in Durban, when he and I were both six years old. We were born five days apart, and met through our parents, who were friends.  He now lives in Australia, with his partner of many years. To my delight, they’re coming down to Cape Town soon, and we’re going to take our moms out for breakfast, to celebrate our birthdays.  He inspires me, because he’s in a profession he loves, and he’s living his truth, travelling whenever he can, and filling his life with things that are meaningful to him. Besides being a really lovely and lovable guy, he’s also a bookworm and a word nerd. 

Another very special friendship I have is with someone I met when I was 17 and she, 15. We belonged to the same performing arts group, where she was a dancer and I, an aspiring actress. Today, she is a full-time, professional actress, who seems to have become increasingly busy, as more people recognise the immense talent she’s always had.  She’s amazing. Even when we lived continents apart, that bond was always there. We’re very different, yet we have so much in common. She inspires me, because she’s overcome immense odds, and come out shining like the star she is. She’s one of the most talented, naturally creative people I know. Also a bookworm, also a word nerd. Writes the most riveting poetry, and basically succeeds at whatever she attempts. Life has given her some unbelievably hard knocks, but she’s proved to be bigger and better than all the adversity. She’s truly beautiful, and I can’t imagine my life without her in it.

And then I have, amongst so many other friendships, old and new, a group of friends who are in a category of their own – my high school friends! These are people I met 41 years ago, in 1975. Life just keeps bringing us back into each other’s world! In the past two weeks, I have had lunch with two of them (separately), and coffee with a third high school friend. I am due to meet a fourth person from this special group soon. Fortunately, we now work less than a kilometre apart, so it’s not difficult to get together.  She’s very bright, and was always winning the English prize at school. She’s really cool. I like her no-nonsense attitude and am in awe of how she has fed her wanderlust by travelling to many countries over many years. Also a bookworm, also a word nerd. One of the most endearing things about her is her laugh – a spontaneous, delicious and infectious sound.

In a most unexpected turn of events, I find myself working closely with someone who was my best friend at high school. It’s fascinating how life keeps looping, bringing special people back into our realms. I can only think that there are amazing things to be achieved, when these collaborations recur, especially so many years later, when one has gathered so much life experience and has reached a point of self-acceptance. Another no-nonsense person, dances to the beat of her own drum, and remains down to earth and connected to what’s important. She’s creative and a wonderful catalyst and inspiration to everyone she encounters. She's proved to be one of those exceptional people who can comfortably straddle the artistic and the business worlds Another bookworm and word nerd. :-)

   

Most of my high school friends were in the same class as me for the full five years. Some others  weren’t, but the friendships are as strong. I am proud of all my friends. Life hasn’t been easy for some, but they have persevered and pulled through. Others have very successful careers, and live comfortable lives. But the thread that binds us together has nothing to do with material possessions – there’s something else, an unbreakable bond that defies description.

I have quite a few other very good friends, people I’ve either studied with, worked with, or collaborated with musically, and I know those friendships will last, even if we don’t see each other often. As with so many other things in life, sometimes explanation and analysis are unnecessary – you just have to accept that that is what it is, and enjoy it.  

I recently met up with a primary school friend, after more than 40 years, and I was delighted to find that she was exactly the same person I’d loved so many years ago, and that our friendship was able to pick up from where it had had to pause, decades ago. And just to show how consistent the pattern is, she's also a bookworm and a word nerd. :-) 

I love life. I love every new day, and I give thanks when I wake up and realise I have been given another day. I’m 54 years old, and, for as long as I can remember, I have been deeply reflective. Hence the journaling, and hence the blog. But I do know that, coexisting comfortably with my solitary, reflective nature, is my wonderful treasure trove of friends, the golden thread running through the tapestry of my life. I hope they all know how much fuller and more filled with magic my life is because of them, and that a significant part of who I am, and who I like being, comes from knowing them.

And just in case you haven't realised it, I mean the term "word nerd" in the nicest possible way. 

Peace  

     Taken in 2008, near Rooi Els, on a weekend away with a cousin who's one of my closest friends.