Camera on Standby

Photograph: a picture I took with my phone in Camps Bay, one morning in Feb 2009.

Friday 20 May 2011 08:55

One of those days where I feel I could write for hours. Have to interrupt this, though, because today I take my daughter to her third and last high school interview.

Interesting how this process happens. We applied to three schools: Westerford High, where her brother’s been since 2009, Bergvliet High, which is a mere 2km from our home, and Claremont High, a brand new school which opened this year. The interesting thing about Claremont High, is that Westerford, which was voted the top public school in the country in 2009/10 (I can’t remember which), was approached by the Western Cape Education Department to set up and administer the school. As a family, we’re so impressed by Westerford, that we can only imagine Claremont High being a good place to apply to as a third option.

Each school handles the process slightly differently – Westerford’s principal, the dynamic Rob Le Roux, personally goes to the primary schools and interviews the Grade 7’s who were shortlisted. That already speaks volumes. Bergvliet High splits the interviews amongst senior staff members, so we were interviewed by a teacher yesterday, Mr De Klerk. And, yes, I do mean “we” – both parents had to be present at the interview! While interviewing the parents may be innovative and hugely significant, I thought my daughter would have spoken more freely had we not been there. Hats off to her, though, because despite having a bout of flu (caught from moi), she handled herself well, spoke eloquently and came across as confident but not arrogant.

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I knew, from the moment I looked out of our kitchen window this morning, that today was a day for writing. For some reason or other, we had a nice early start to the day (crazy, considering I crawled into bed at 01:30, after my post-gig adrenalin story) and were treated to the most incredible dawn and sunrise sky I’d witnessed in a long time. (Lesson – get out of the house 15 minutes earlier!) My children and I were oohing and aahing, gasping with delight and surprise for the entire time we were together, driving to their schools. We’re always photographing the sky, the clouds, the mountains. This is because we live in a part of the southern suburbs that has a fabulous 360-degree view of some of Cape Town’s most picturesque mountains and vineyards, providing us with daily masterpieces of nature that take our breath away.

I am SO inspired today, after this morning’s splendid, colourful and wondrous greeting. It was a morning full of magic and promise, and I told my children I had a feeling something wonderful was going to happen to our family today. It was just that kind of morning. In fact, what was indeed wonderful was the three of us experiencing it together, being moved and inspired, each in our own very personal way.

Along the route to my son’s school, I had to stop at traffic lights a few times, and each time I tried to photograph the magic in the sky before it faded away in the glare of the rising sun, but my camera (phone) wouldn’t take the photos. It kept displaying the message “Camera on standby”. I realised I hadn’t taken the previous ones off the phone and saved them on the laptop - in my careful filing system of every digital photo I’ve ever taken (Virgo!) – which meant there was no space to save new ones. I decided that this was one of those moments to just enjoy the experience and to document in a way other than photographically – to drink it in, feel the warmth slipping down into my soul, and to remember, for as long as I can, that I’d had a morning like this one. My son, with all the wisdom of a 16-year-old, put it best when I grumbled about not being able to take pictures right then, giving me the perspective nature itself was trying to instill in me, when he said, “Don’t worry, Mom -there’ll be other mornings like this.”

Later on, after dropping him, I thought about his words and looked at my phone, with “Camera on standby” still displayed on the screen; it occurred to me how accurately this reflected my life. I tend to fling myself into life – GO, GO, GO, GO, DO, DO, DO, DO - and sometimes I wonder why I’m not seeing the results I want, not feeling the progress, not reaching any of my most cherished goals, but the truth is, if I’m not routinely STOPPING to reflect, to review, to recharge, to download my experiences and process them, I won’t have any space for the new ones. My life will be like the camera on my phone – filled with special moments from the past, using up all the storage capacity, and making it impossible for new things to be taken in, recorded for posterity, accessible and available whenever I want to have another look and experience those moments again.

Yes, I am a dreamer, someone who’d rather sit and stare at the ocean or the sky, playing my guitar, than be indoors, watching some mindless television programme. Yes I am a loopy-grinned, freckle-faced, curly-headed dreamer, who’d rather walk in the forest and smell the heady fragrances of nature than buy expensive things that have no spiritual value to me. And yes, I am unashamedly living my life this way, because, in a way that’s starting to dawn on me daily, my “truth” has already been firmly established; that isn’t actually what I’m looking for anymore - what I’m looking for now is that “Of course!”, obvious space for me in this world in which to situate myself, in order to quietly, naturally and unambiguously live my truth, in a way that will bring me happiness and security and benefit others, bringing joy to their lives.

So, yes, I can say I AM living my truth - except now it needs a broader context. I have a huge contribution to make during my lifetime; if I could use music to make that contribution, that loopy grin would become a permanent feature, both on my face and in my soul.