Two Profiles (Written 14 Feb '26)

Background music, as I start typing this post: Clair de Lune, by Claude Debussy, one of the most beautiful pieces of music, and one I often listen to on repeat, because it's complete - it doesn't need other pieces of music for context, meaning, or identity. In a way I can't describe, it completes me.  

When I switch on my laptop, I am faced with pics of my two profiles - my personal one, which I've had for as long as I've had this laptop (about 8 years), and my school one. I purposefully don't have my school one on my phone, because it saves me from 24/7 reachability. It's too much. I've noticed an expectation from people, in different parts of my life, that I will always be reading texts and emails. I don't even have email notifications on my phone - I'll see your email when I check my emails. It's all too intrusive. You can't ever fully relax, because you might be contacted. The worst is when people video call you without prior arrangement. That call will never be answered by me - that is the ultimate intrusion on my personal time and space. I have a right to time out from others. Living alone makes this even more important. I enjoy and look forward to time away from people.  The longer I live alone, the more right it feels for me. Also, I believe that late-night calls are for close people, or for emergencies. If you're not in my close circle, unless it's urgent, call me the next day. 

On Facebook, I also have two profiles - one is my personal one, which I've had since 2009, and the other is my musician page, which I started in 2013. I spend a lot of time on my personal one (which my students tell me is an old-person's platform), but hardly go onto my muso one when I'm not musically active. Actually, I think I'll change that. Not doing gigs because my day job depletes me doesn't mean I'm no longer a musician. I still listen to and enjoy music, and occasionally play and sing on my own at home. And I enjoy seeing what other musicians are doing, especially in Cape Town. When I see my Facebook memories from a few years back, I'm shocked by how much my life has changed since re-entering full-time public-sector teaching. I honestly don't know how anyone manages to maintain hobbies (let alone relationships!) while being a full-time teacher. The little time that you're not at school, you spend doing your domestic chores, and squeezing in a bit of time to relax and recover.  

We're raised to believe that our jobs support our personal lives, but, while they earn us the resources from which to live, it's actually the other way around - the time I spend managing my personal life is so that my day job runs smoothly. I try to keep my flatlet uncluttered so that I can come home and do my schoolwork in an organised space. (I really need an extra room - just saying!) I cook for a few days at a time, on Sundays, so that I can use my evenings doing schoolwork, without having to prepare meals. A lot of what I routinely do is aimed at ensuring that I function optimally in my job. I live the way I do because of the job I have. I earn just what I need to survive. In months where I have additional expenses, like renewing my car license, I have to give up one of my other personal budget items - usually, my haircut. 

But I constantly reflect and re-evaluate my choices. Wherever possible, I come up with inexpensive ways to infuse meaning into my life. My weekly walking habit is one example. Even though I drive 24km to get to my preferred walking space (it's complicated for South African women wanting to exercise outdoors), I decided that it was worth it. I can't quantify the significance of this habit in my life. The truth is, I would love to walk 5km every day, preferably on the beach, but for now I'm doing what works for my busy life. I aim to increase the frequency, staring with a mid-week walk, but since I decided that, my school programme hasn't given me the space to start. I suspect that when it finally does, we'll have hit our colder weather (already starting). I'll simply haul out my warmer clothes and layer up. If I could start and sustain (for 16 weeks so far) a weekly walking routine, I can definitely notch it up to twice a week.

              Sea Point Promenade, on 15 March '26. I took a late afternoon walk, for a change.  

All I know is that walking makes me very, very happy, and I want to do as much of it as possible. Maybe by next spring, I'll feel like signing up for one of those public walks. I can already feel my crowd-phobic side shouting Noooooooo!! I'll see.   

Playing now on my Classical Piano playlist: When The Clouds Cleared, by Alexander Motovilov.  

Saturdays have definitely become my catch-up-with-sleep days. I listen to my body. It's a way of honouring myself. I wake up without an alarm, usually after a good, long sleep, I have a leisurely breakfast, I journal or blog, and if it feels right, I go back to bed and have my chapter two sleep. I love the pure indulgence of it - the delicious antithesis of my week days. 

On playlist: Spark, by Asti Fajriani

Remember my 2026 'motto'? It's "I show up for myself every single day, in good times and in bad." I think I'll drop the second part. "Every single day" says it all.  I love how, when I reflect on each day, I see how I've managed to show up for myself, despite the feeling that I'm living the Plan B version of my life. I'll keep doing so. Even when we do small things for ourselves, we're showing ourselves love and care, which nourish our souls and keep us going.

       Alphen Trail, on 8 March '26. There was a huge event in Sea Point, so I walked closer to home. 

Some of the ways in which I show up for myself:

* I take myself on a tranquil walk once a week.

* I start each day with lemon water.

* I eat only what I love (vegetarian since 1 Nov. 2025).

* I drink water throughout the day.

* I have set morning and evening routines.

* I avoid people who make me feel stressed.

* I journal regularly.

* I set my own standards, regardless of watered-down expectations.

* I play my guitar.

* I crochet.

* I've resumed my reading habit.  

* I watch documentaries about other countries. 

* I listen to music as much as I can. 

* I remember who I am, and that I add value wherever I am. 

* I take photos of nature in all its beauty.

* I smile. A lot. 

     

      Sea Point, on 1 March '26. I had such fun, jumping in and out of the spray from the wild waves.
   

 

Have I Lost You?

 As usual, I have a number of topics I feel like writing about. Today, however, I am compelled to write  about just one.

Yesterday, just over a month after suffering a stroke, Dr. Diana Ferrus passed away. She had been hospitalised for a while, and was moved to a rehabiltation centre for further treatment. On Facebook, I followed the regular updates by her family, and believed she was recovering well. The news of her passing, yesterday, came as an awful shock. 

I think I met Diana in about 2010. I can't remember the details, but it was at an event where we both performed - she, her poetry, and me, my music.  I loved her work. I realised that, even though reading them was a profound experience, her poems were best enjoyed by watching her live performances. I know many people who are wordsmiths, who have impressive vocabularies, and who can make the dullest subject sound interesting, but Diana's gift with words was on another level. She had the ability to use just a few words, in a few lines, to say something deeply moving and thought-provoking. 

I love the way she wrote about everyday experiences and lifted them to something special. I love the way she tapped into different human experiences, often of things foreign to us, and made them real to all of us. Her Afrikaans poem about her father's jacket, "Die Jas", comes to mind. As does her poem about how enslaved people who died on ships were just flung into the ocean: "My naam is Februarie".

I'm finding it hard to write, because I'm still dealing with the shock and sorrow of Diana no longer being around. It still feels unreal. 

Diana was a riveting storyteller, and, whether it was about her childhood, her father's incarceration as a WW11 POW, or an incident that had happened to her the previous day,  she kept her audience captivated. Amidst her seriousness, her sense of humour crept through, and she'd have us in stitches. 

I loved listening to Diana. In conversations with a small group of friends, I always wanted to shush everybody when she was speaking, because she carried such gravitas, like a sense of nobility. She was knowledgeable, and she felt injustices deeply, as evidenced by her poems. When she spoke, I never wanted her to stop, because it was like being addressed by an All-Knowing One, A Wise One. 

And it wasn't just the content of  her speech - she had a really beautiful voice, like rich, dark, liquid chocolate. I loved it when she broke into song, in the middle of her poems.   

I could see, in recent years, that she was growing tired. Her post-retirement performance life was busy, and she sometimes mentioned in her Facebook posts that she needed to rest. What broke my heart was her references to how people took performers for granted.  

One of my points of creative collaboration was when she asked me to sing some of my originals at her book launch, in about 2011. A memorable creative intersection was in 2014, when I put music to one of her older poems, called "Have I Lost You?" I am so glad I got to perform it one night when she was in the audience.  

Diana, I cannot believe you're gone. The world is a lot less magical without you.  

     L-R: Diana Ferrus, Errol Dyers, Me, and my cousin, Derek Ronnie. (2014) Photo: Gregory Frantz 

   

Written on 7 Jan 2026

In an hour's time, I start getting ready for a brunch date with a friend. I've been wanting to blog for SO long, and it feels like now's a good time. If I don't finish in time (I take a long time to edit my writing and find photos), I'll finish later. 

It's the last few days of our month-long summer holiday, with the new school year starting on Monday 12 Jan. I am happy to have had my teaching contract renewed for another year. No job is perfect, but this is where life has placed me, for now, and I  am grateful for this opportunity to make an impact at a school so rich in history and aligned with my political views. 

If you're not South African, you might find that statement strange. What do political views have to do with one's workplace? Almost 32 years into our post-apartheid democracy, there are still many issues to be addressed. Living in South Africa and pretending all our current problems are unrelated to apartheid, but solely the result of bad governance by the ANC, is both naive and incorrect. I would not survive in a context where the past was conveniently forgotten, to appease the historically privileged. 

But that's not what I want to write about today.    

Interestingly, I find that the state of my health is playing a more central role in my life choices. I had a medical check up a few days ago, and while my blood pressure had stabilised, my heart rate was still a problem. I've now been put on a tablet to address that. 

Some changes I've made, in recent months, include weekly walks in nature (my ultimate goal is daily walks), switching to a plant-based diet, cutting out most of the sweet treats I used to love, starting my day with a glass of lemon water, and generally pacing myself better. My guiding principle for living as stress-free a life as possible (a key element of blood pressure and heart health) is knowing myself. The next step is honouring myself, because life has shown me that it's possible to know yourself and still self-sabotage, as you live the way you were raised to, which is to consider everyone else's needs but your own. Finding the balance is important. Difficult, but important.   

Of course, a lot of this is much easier when you're on a four-week break from work. Once I'm back, the likelihood of slipping into patterns that don't serve me is strong, and that's the challenge I'll face next week.  I do think, though, that in the 28 months that I've been in this job, I've sorted out quite a bit. The difficulty for me is that I am prone to being a workaholic, and living alone simply exacerbates it. When you live with someone else, there's a sane (ideally) person around you, reminding you that there's more to life than work. When you're on your own, it's easy to come home, have a snack, then launch into schoolwork for the next few hours, until your stiff neck makes you realise it's almost midnight, and you should probably shower and get to bed. That's the harmful and life-shortening pattern I plan to break. Or, in modern-speak, disrupt.

I fully appreciate that living alone has pros and cons. I love living alone, but it means I always have to go somewhere for any social interaction. It sounds silly, but it's the truth. When you live with even one other person, you have a built-in little society inside your home. 

Going to work every day also provides social interaction - sometimes too much! - which I really do value. During last year, I got to know my colleagues better, and forged bonds with people who had similar life values and approaches to education.  So yes, having a job is about so much more than earning a salary - and teaching is like a few jobs rolled into one.  

(I didn't  finish this on the day I wrote it, but I'll post it as is. )

Ok - time to get ready.