A few hours before New Year, 2023

Ever since I can remember, I've had an obsession with counting things. Really irrelevant things, sometimes. More than that, I can't resist calculating averages, over different time periods. Like when I had to wash baby clothes by hand, I'd count the number of items, so I knew the average number of  clothing items I washed by hand, in a given week or month. Even now, if I have to wait anywhere, and I don't have a book with me, I start counting random things, like window panes, or the number of people with visible tattoos. 

When I compare the number of blog posts I did in 2021 (29) with the number in 2022 (this is no. 15), it would be easy for me to feel like I've failed, in some way. But I don't. Even though numbers float around in my brain all the time, I've stopped being so hard on myself in terms of expecting everything to have increased each year. In 2011, I did an astounding 71 blog posts (almost 6 a month!), and in 2020, only 11. There's no way I could say that, if I could achieve 71 in 2011, then I should've been able to equal or improve on it every year after that; each year has its own set of circumstances, and it's silly  to think that numbers tell the whole story. 

This year, I've experienced some of my lowest lows and my highest highs. It's been a rollercoaster ride, but with more private tears than public screams. No single year exists in isolation, so 2022 was very much a consequence of 2021 (lockdown & retrenchment), as well as of 2020 (lockdown, with immense work-related frustration and stress). The best part about one year flowing into the next is that new ideas and lessons learnt can be applied in subsequent years. And that's how I feel as I type this post, just 3 and a half hours before the start of 2023. 

About half an hour ago, there was an unbelievably loud bang outside, which could have been a gunshot, but was most probably a huge firecracker.  It shocked me so, that I was trembling for long afterwards. I was scared there'd be more, but I was also really worried about people's pets and how much they suffer when that happens. In South Africa, it's illegal to set off fireworks in residential areas, but you'll always find idiots who do it anyway.  

My lowest low, this year, was being unemployed for a few months, employed part-time for a few months, and the resulting financial crisis I was flung into. One of my biggest goals for next year is to increase and stabilise my income, so that I can sort things out and feel like I like to feel again. 

My highest high was finally finding the courage to change direction in my music life, and starting my Solo Sessions. I'm a bit distracted right now, so I'll probably blog again in the next few days. I have so much to write, including about how magical Solo Session 5 was! 

I have a few thoughts about 2023, and I won't share them all here, but some of the things I want to consciously do are to worry less (I worry a lot - about everything!), to trust myself more, and to play to my strengths.  I also want to go back to mentally pressing the Pause button when I feel awkward about committing to something someone suggests. Not everything needs an immediate response. 

I also feel that, as my children grow into their adult lives, I need to focus on making sure my own life is full and interesting, so that, when I find myself living alone, there won't be too much of a void. These transitions are a natural part of life, and parents do their children a disservice by clinging to them long after they've expressed a readiness to live independently. 

Whatever the new year may bring, I want to be at peace with the choices I make. I also need to remind myself that life's too short to play small when you are bursting with ideas. I am 61 years old, and I want to live an interesting life, following my heart and avoiding whatever does not spark joy. I think we should live our lives, while we can.

Happy New Year. May 2023 be a good year for us all.   

    

Showing up for myself

A week ago, on Saturday, 10 December, I did my fourth Solo Session. To everyone else, it may seem like just another gig, but to me it was so much more. 

I was reading through some notes I'd made in January this year, in which I'd brainstormed the year ahead. Somewhere I'd written, under my music goals: "originals?" Shifting my focus to my original compositions had been on my mind for a long time. For many reasons, I had seen my gig life as performances of cover versions, and - for a couple of years - relegated my originals to an annual concert with one of my duo partners. When I was given one year in which to raise funds for my daughter to go to Thailand, in Grade 10, I did a five-concert series focussing on my original work. I performed with different people, in different venues, and we featured some younger artists, as well. I will always be grateful to everyone for their assistance. That was a very interesting and exciting year. We started in August 2013 and the trip was in June 2014. In a blog post, dated 8 July 2014, I wrote about the 5 fundraising concerts.

Anyway, the many reasons I kept side-lining my own music, in favour of covers, is linked to both the local music scene, as well as my personal journey, as a highly sensitive person, raised to put everyone else's needs before my own, and easily put off pursuing a different path when it seems it will cause certain people who are important to me to stop liking/loving me. There - I've said it! Fear of rejection. I can't get any more vulnerable than that. 

In my song, Delighted, I sing: "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 / Cos I couldn't see / That I was not being me."

It's been a long and convoluted road, for me. All kinds of messages come our way, even when they're not addressed directly to us. If you hear your family/friends speak disparagingly about a certain type of behaviour, you get the message that you shouldn't do that. If you hear people you care about laughing at choices made by others, you know you'd risk ridicule, yourself, if you took those same choices. And because we tend to seek harmony at all costs, we adapt our behaviour, and even our goals, to stay IN the circle of acceptance, and not find ourselves adrift in the wilderness.  

But that works for only a short while, right? At some point, when certain patterns become clear, you start to think, "Fuck it, they're going to disapprove of me, regardless of whether I try to be authentic IN the circle, or live my truth and take a different path to the one everyone expects me to take."  

And that journey, in my broader life, was naturally echoed in my music life. Raised to put others first, without a healthy balance, I felt selfish for wanting to perform my own songs. Hearing disapproving comments from people close to me, including romantic partners, I curbed my desire to share my own compositions, and packaged them neatly into occasional performances - and even then, always accompanied by a more accomplished musician. Why? Two reasons - they definitely enhanced the sound of the songs (and I learnt a lot from all my music partners), AND I was scared that, on my own,  performing my songs wouldn't be good enough. In other words, I was shit scared. 

And then lockdown happened and we couldn't do public gigs. I went from doing at least one gig per week, to doing nothing. I sang in about six online concerts, during lockdown, always doing originals, and then in 2021, I sang two live gigs at the end of the year (Nov & Dec). That was after stopping live gigs in March 2020! During lockdown, I thought about what life would be like if I could never gig again. In fact, I'd started to think that that part of my life was over, and it made me really miserable. Also in that time, in Sept 2021, I turned 60, and I started thinking about how quickly life had passed, and about what I wanted to do before leaving this realm. It became crystal clear to me that I needed to stop trying to be any version of myself other than the one I was comfortable being. It was time for me to stop overthinking it, and to focus, unapologetically, on my own songs. It makes no sense to spend decades creating something and then to be afraid, especially in a world full of knock-offs, to expose your creations. In a braver headspace than usual, I decided to not just expose them, but to celebrate them.  

I also knew that the type of performance experience I wanted was different to what I had been doing before, and that it would be a huge risk. I was scared, but I knew I had to at least give it a try. I'm still scared, and the truth is that, a few days before each of the four Solo Sessions, I've considered cancelling the show because of low bookings. But Cape Town audiences are very interesting. The day before, you can have two tickets booked, and on the day, you'll have 22 people in your audience. Only 22? Well, my goal is 30. And, at this stage of my life, I'd rather sing to 22 people who are there specifically to listen to me and my songs than to 80 people talking and laughing loudly in a restaurant, where they might as well have a CD playing.  

Summary of my 4 Solo Sessions:

1. Sunday, 4 September, at Surplus Books, in Woodstock. So much went wrong, that day, but I'd made a start, and I was more convinced than ever that that was what I wanted to do. Many lessons learnt. I loved the quirkiness of singing in a bookshop, and I'd love to do so again. I wish the people who came to that show could come to one of my shows in 2023, because my first one was my worst one! 😀 

2. Sunday, 2 October, at Athenaeum, in Newlands. A very different vibe, in that building - but again, I enjoyed the experience. Like the bookshop, it was also an interesting space, conducive to storytelling.  

3. Saturday 22 October, at Café Societi, in the Homecoming Centre, in District Six. What a cool space! I would love to go back there. That whole building is filled with history and stories, and I feel some kind of magic there.   

4. Saturday, 10 December, in the foyer of the hall at Harold Cressy High School, in District Six. I liked the feeling of occupying a bare space, not intended for performance, and singing there. It was an extremely fulfilling experience, because I felt the audience (very responsive) throughout the hour, and of course it was surreal singing at my old high school, after 43 years!  

                 Solo Session 4, at Cressy.  Photo: Vincent Hendricks 

I am proud of myself for having made a start on this project. It's an indefinite concert series, because it's all I want to do, for as long as I can. I am working hard behind the scenes to improve the production side of things, as well as the quality of the music itself. I love having artistic freedom and control, but I am collaborating with people who can help me level up in as many ways as possible. 

I  thought about hiring a manager, but right now, that's not viable. I will continue to do all the work myself, outsourcing here and there. What I do need, though, is an assistant - someone capable, with good energy, who thinks out of the box, and who is mature and flexible enough to know when to follow instructions (because I put a lot of thought into everything I do) and when to make suggestions (because there's always something for me to learn). The person needs to like my music, because he/she will be around it a lot.            

Thank you, Universe. In the most important way, I showed up for myself, this year. This was a year fraught with instability on the job front, with resulting financial insecurity, and I could so easily have let that dampen my enthusiasm for this new music venture. But I didn't, and I'm proud of myself. I'm giving myself a BIG pat on the back, because I forged ahead, despite my fears and all those voices in my head from my past, saying, "What makes you think you're special enough to do this?" And "You're dreaming if you think people will come and listen to YOU as a soloist!" And "There are so many other musicians who are much better than you." (I know!!!! And I'm not trying to be them! I'm being myself!) 

I know it will take a while, but those voices are getting softer all the time, as I step into my power, as a creator of original music and lyrics, as a storyteller through songs, and as someone who's spent the past 44 years playing guitar and writing songs. I know I have a lot to offer. This original concert series was always going to happen - it was just a matter of time. And now that I've started, and I'm seeing what works and what doesn't, I am super excited about 2023 and all the cool spaces I'll be occupying, as well as all the cool audiences with whom I'll be sharing my songs and stories.   

Thank you, Universe. 

Breaking a Pattern of People Pleasing

When I was a child, I'd often hear my mom say, "Wisdom comes with age". I accepted it as a given because that's what you do, as a child. When I got older, however, and started questioning almost everything I'd been told (and sorting out what I would retain or discard - a never-ending journey, it turns out), I had to be honest that I knew quite a few older people who were not wise. I also knew many young people who were. It's funny how we say, in those cases, that she's "wise beyond her years", based on that same world view espoused by my mom. I'm not saying that it's completely baseless - just that it's not always true.  

What I have noticed, as I've continued to live self-reflectively, consciously discarding habits that no longer make sense and adopting ones that do, is that I occasionally catch myself in mid-response,  identify what's happening, and deliberately make a healthier choice. Being able to identify situations when you're likely to slip into default mode, is a good start. 

It occurred to me that you put yourself under a lot of pressure, when you're a people pleaser. It's such an unfortunate interpretation of kindness. It's like kindness on steroids, with you merely emptying your tanks, leaving nothing for yourself. And yet many of us were raised that way. We learn it as children, it's drummed into us at school, and by the time we enter into adult relationships, that inability to draw clear boundaries and to meet our own needs without feeling guilty is firmly entrenched. And we keep doing it - servicing others' needs, at the expense of our own. There's immense  pressure on girls, in particular, and we all grow into women who can't distinguish between a life characterised by reciprocated acts of kindness and one in which you're being taken advantage of.     

It all comes down to a topic I frequently write about - boundaries. During lockdown, I had a few online sessions with a really good psychologist (whom I met in person, as soon as lockdown was lifted), who taught me to "press the pause button", if I felt I was about to respond in a way that no longer felt right for me. It was something I had to practise - not responding immediately. Sometimes, it's better to say, "Let me get back to you", and to give yourself some time to think it through, before responding. Especially if you recognise a line of conversation or a feeling that you associate with previous situations that disrespected your boundaries. Manipulation can be very subtle, and for some people it's an  unconscious, habitual way of communicating. It's particularly hard to spot when it comes from someone you love; for me, it's hard to spot when it's said in a gentle voice, because we always think of manipulators as loud and monstrous. Most of the time, they're just people who want to achieve a certain outcome with the least possible effort, and they know exactly who to pick on to achieve it. It happens in the workplace, in marriages, between friends, between parents and children - in fact, wherever people are, that's where manipulation lives and breathes. Sometimes it's as inconsequential as getting a small task done, but at other times,  it could give rise to the most unconscionable, life-altering set of circumstances.     

I've also realised how people pleasing has led to my tendency to overthink situations, because I'm so concerned with making others happy, or meeting their needs. I'll give you an example. Someone who'd been to one of my Solo Sessions is planning to attend my next one. The first thing I thought was, "I should change my set list", because I thought it would be less enjoyable for that person to hear the same songs. Which is ridiculous, because it's a particular show I'm doing in different venues, with a carefully selected list of songs, and a pre-determined narrative. And then I thought about someone else who'd come to my second session, then brought her father to my third one, because she wanted him to hear a particular song linked to his life. (It was about forced removals from District Six - "In the Shade of Table Mountain".)  All I need to do is focus on my goal and work undistractedly through the steps along the way. That's all. Don't overthink what would suit someone else better - not on this project. That's part of why it's a solo concert series.   

Also, I have previously made big changes to my plans, based on the anticipation of someone else's expectations, and then that person has been a no-show. All I do, in those instances, is deviate from my chosen path and expend energy unnecessarily.  It's not selfish to have  a goal and work towards it. I find it funny how everyone applauds people who reach their goals, but can be so judgemental while you're working towards yours.    

Another situation arose, recently, where someone asked me if I had a particular item. I didn't have the item (for a perfectly good reason), but I immediately felt I'd let the person down.  It's ridiculous! Again, I had to catch myself in mid-shame spiral and course-correct, because I was putting pressure on myself that was completely unnecessary. I'm sure you know exactly what I mean. 

There are so many instances in my life, where this has happened, and allowing myself not to feel bad about things is still part of my journey. Every now and then, someone asks if I'm religious. This is a topic I generally avoid, except in my circle of trust, in which I am not judged for my choices, because very few people even want to comprehend a life without institutionalised religion. After saying that I'm not, I often qualify it by saying that I'd been raised as an Anglican. The point is, I don't need to justify my life choices. But the environment in which I live is fraught with the energy of "be like us, or explain why you're not, and we're going to keep reminding you what our expectations are, so that you can eventually be like us". This attitude crops up in relation to the most banal things, like whether you dye your grey hair or not, as well as what an acceptable length for grey hair is. Why don't we just let someone make the choice that's right for herself? And if she wants to make a different choice after that, why don't we just respect that too? It's not that complicated. Again - interesting how this topic is usually about judging women, and not men. 

I keep thinking, whenever I'm confronted with such myopic thinking: "I'm too old for this shit!" I am amazed at how people who survived the Covid pandemic could be just as parochial as they were before. But that's where part of my naïveté lies - I expect everyone to have done a lot of soul searching and to have decided that life has to be celebrated, and that there are many versions of truth. Personally, I'd rather have a variety of people in my life with different beliefs, feeling happy and respected, than to give people a hard time by insisting that only my view was acceptable.    

In conclusion, as I proceed through this 2nd day of December, still trying to figure out how quickly this year has passed, I am grateful for lessons learnt, for those still being learnt, and for the many I've yet to learn. I'm blessed to have truly wonderful people in my life - including ones who live far away - and I count myself extremely lucky to be alive on this day, to be healthy and to have all my mental faculties. I take nothing for granted. 

As I anticipate a busy weekend, with lots of social interaction, I am at peace with this day of uninterrupted solitude. 

This day is filled with possibility.  

                   After my 2nd Solo Session, at Athenaeum. Photo: Marwhaan Lodewyk 02/10/22