Live your truth

Picture: At the end of September last year, this entire plant was as dry as the little sticks showing on the top right hand side of the picture. I refused to give up on it, because I suspected that, with care and patience, it could be restored to its former state of health and beauty. Looking at it thriving now, I'm so glad I did.

01h40

So here I am again – that same intensity that fuels my songwriting, keeping me awake long after my gig. Thursday was one ‘helluva’ day! I can’t believe so many amazing things happened on one day. Well, maybe they’re just amazing to me, but still, what a day! A special day, filled with firsts.

This morning I had my 6th life coaching session, and a few things emerged that promise to guide me towards greater focus and commitment, as well as to take me on a slightly different path towards one of my main goals. I love the way the life coach sifts through everything I’m saying and identifies patterns of behaviour that hold me back, as well as ones that propel me forward. I am particularly amazed at how long it’s taking me to break certain immediately-identifiable self-sabotaging habits. It’s astounding how tenaciously I’ve clung to some of them! The most important thing is to keep using the strategies that work, and to discard the ones that don’t.

Afterwards, I went to an internet café in our area - a clean, pleasant, low-priced place - and sent off an e-mail I’d been trying to send for a few days.

I spent a good part of the day practising for the gig, and put a lot of effort into selecting my songs and writing up my set lists.

Later in the day, an invitation from a surprising source, and one which I’m eagerly anticipating.

And then the gig – wow! Two good friends of mine, Diana and Vangie, each pitched up with a group of friends, and stayed for the evening! Both of them lead very full, busy lives, so I felt humbled and astounded that they’d chosen to spend a whole evening at a place where I was playing! That immediately made my night, and I enjoyed the experience of singing to people who liked my music; in honour of them and their loyalty, I did a few more originals than I’d planned to, which changed the flavour of my night considerably. Songwriters should sing their own songs, period. I feel more alive and authentic when I’m performing my own stuff. Every cell in my body glows and smiles, and I feel like I’m doing what I was born to do.

During the break, I met a musician – percussionist, Daniel Bloem - who played a few songs with me on someone’s djembe, towards the end of my second set, and it was really exciting. Interesting chatting to him and finding him to be a very cool person, different, anything but shallow and materialistic, a breath of fresh air.

After my second set, one of South Africa’s guitar greats, Steve Newman, took to the stage and played like the wizard he is. Oh my goodness – his dexterity and intensity took my breath away! It was like being enveloped in a cloud of sound, sitting about two metres from him while he played. He used a few different guitars, one of them really tiny, called a soprano guitar, which he said he tunes to C sharp, so it’s a really high-pitched range of sound.

Later the same morning – after a deliciously restorative sleep:
As I reflect on this and so many other things happening in my life, I am more excited than I could possibly put into words about the direction in which my life is heading, with increasing inexorability. There’s obviously still an element of ‘insecurity’ - for want of a better word - because my employment situation is not settled, but at the same time, a whole new realm of existence is emerging, and I’m discovering that there are strongly viable alternatives to the 9-to-5 scenario. In fact, I sincerely hope never to need that kind of employment again. As time goes by, I’m becoming clearer as to what and whom I want to proceed into the rest of my life with. Stale aspects of my life, the ones that have been holding me back - and holding me hostage – are suddenly glaringly dysfunctional (as I suppose they’ve always been), and I’m finally able to look critically at them and be absolutely okay about leaving them behind. It’s so liberating! Shoo!

What works for me is to replace things I’m discarding with healthier alternatives. I find physical exercise helps put a lot into perspective. Whichever way you go about it, the best investment you can make is in your health, because what’s the use of being part of a generation that’s likely to live beyond 90, yet you’re facing your last 30 years being lived with ill-health? It doesn’t make any sense to me. I fully subscribe to the “healthy mind in a healthy body” tenet.

So, exercise has become firmly established as one of my non-negotiables. A second priority for me is regular, serious music practice. Tomorrow I go back to working with my tutor, which I'll do once a month, and that’s something I’ve really missed for the past few months. The discipline of working on my own, though, is something that arose from my having to stop lessons when I was retrenched. That alone has been an amazing journey, where I now find myself exploring material to perform that previously I might have shied away from, or might have tackled in a more conventional way. I can feel myself slowly becoming more courageous, less worried about what people think, and a whole lot truer to myself.

Many years ago, an astrologer I hold in high esteem said to me:
“Live your truth, and the universe will support you.”

I can’t believe I had to walk such a long, convoluted path before I fully understood the emancipatory power of those words.