TRANSCRIPT OF WOMAN ZONE INTERVIEW WITH TRUDY RUSHIN,
PART OF ‘FINDING HERSELF’ PODCAST SERIES (DEC. 2020)
INTERVIEWER: THERESA SMITH
·
So – who or what has stood in your way, on
this journey?
TRUDY: You know, I’m hesitant to
blame anybody. I would say the things that hold me back, typically, are linked
to my socialisation. So I would say it’s
myself – it’s all inside of me. Where… we weren’t raised to shine, as weird as
that sounds – even though your parents always wanted the best for you. You sort
of got the idea that other people excelled and you did what you had to do. And
there was a bit of “hou jouself plat” … you know…. “hou vir jou plat”,
in the socialisation. And I’m not saying this to blame, you know, parents.
Parents do they best that they can. Those messages, man, of like, “Who do you
think you are? “ You know? Which was completely different to how my mother
lived her life, you know, as this opera singer on stage.
So, who stood in my way? I would
say a lot of those messages of “be a good girl”, “follow the rules”, “do the
right thing”, made me focus so much on being compliant. Ja, I often didn’t see
the bigger picture that other people may have seen. And I … I would say I
plodded along and I also think things that stood in my way, along the same
lines, like my socialisation, made me blind to the darker side of life. So I
was often quite unsuspecting when weird people came into my life. Er… I wasn’t prepared for people who were not
... like… nice and wanting the best for everyone one else, you know.
TRUDY: And in fact the converse
ends up happening. And I think – and I don’t know if it’s because you and I are
both Virgo – but I find that a lot of what I do in my life is provide a
platform for others … to shine. And
somehow that brings me joy – enabling people to reach their potential.
·
Well, that explains why there are so many
teachers in our family.
TRUDY: Ja! (Laughs) Exactly! And really, it’s… it is a calling and it is
something that, whether you are in a classroom or not, that ability or that
love for showing people the way, showing them how to maximise what’s inside of
them, I think it’s … it’s a gift. And it’s a calling… you know you can’t run
away from it; you can’t switch it off.
TRUDY: So there’s a theme, a thread throughout all
of this, which is: I often don’t see – and maybe again it’s a universal thing,
and maybe it’s very much a woman thing – I often don’t see what other people
see in me. And you know that, when you asked me about the interview, my first
thought was like, “Whaaaat?” Like, you know, maybe I should recommend somebody
else. But it’s always that kind of… we don’t see it ... you know, we don’t see
ourselves the way others do, so who or what opened doors for me - it was always someone else giving me an
opportunity. When I taught at primary school, I was given an opportunity to
become Head of Department. I would never
have gone for that, because I didn’t see myself in that way. When I moved out
of teaching in the state system, I taught TEFL – Teaching English As A Foreign
Language. The owner of one of the schools I taught at gave me so many
opportunities, you know, so that I could go up in the ranks and move into
management. They spotted leadership qualities in me which I just took for
granted. You know, you always think that everyone is capable in the way that
you are, but more so.
And then I would say, musically -
definitely the musicians I’ve worked with. Ja, the first person I worked with
professionally in music was Eddie Petersen.
He now lives abroad, in Australia, I think, or New Zealand. We worked together for… I don’t know if it
was two years… but that was the first time I actually played on a regular basis
with someone, went to rehearsals, etc. And we got gigs where we got paid and
were hired for a long stint at different places … and that was fun, it was new,
it was interesting. And at that stage, I wasn’t playing my guitar at the gigs.
I was the vocalist, so I was the … you know how these typical band things are,
where the men play the instruments and the woman stands in front and sings. (Theresa:
The eye candy, ja!)
At that stage, I was … I fitted
into that category. And then later on, I …. I took a break from gigging when I
got married. And when I came back into performing, I decided that I needed to
do it on my own terms. I think I’d grown up a bit. And when I came back into
performing, I wanted to be part of a duo, and I formed a duo with Keith
Tabisher, a friend of mine from high school. And that was in 2003 and we still
play together – we still work together. And Keith comes from a classical music
background, as well as jazz. And he is extremely versatile - he’s an educator,
he’s a youth developer in his community. I’ve learnt so much from him. I love
making music with him, and we hope that’s going to carry on for a long time.
A few years later, I met another guitarist who made a big impression on me, and that was Wayne Bosch. But Eddie, Keith Tabisher, Wayne Bosch – ja, those are three of the main people who opened doors for me, musically. And I will talk about others later.
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