Three angels

Written Sat. 17 December 2011

As 2011 draws inexorably to a close and I ponder on the things that have changed, the things that have stayed the same, and the surprises along the way, I find myself needing to acknowledge some people in my life, people who might not even realize how their personalities, their choices and their life stories inspire and astound me.

I have a person in my life whose greatness lies in, amongst other things, his humility. I met him in August 2008 when I became his guitar student at Jazz Workshop Music School. I’d known about him and had heard what an amazing guitarist he was, but nothing could’ve prepared me for the beautiful personality that came as part of the Wayne Bosch package. Six months after we met, we did our first performance together, and five months later, landed a weekly restaurant gig that lasted 14 months, at Food Lover’s Market in Claremont, Cape Town. We’ve continued to do gigs since then, and he’s someone whose company I enjoy and whom I respect immensely, for the way he lives his life and for the brilliant musician he is. Wayne is easy-going and fun to work with - a consummate professional, who won’t ever disappoint you. During the gig, he’s absolutely in the moment, and doesn’t ever rest on his laurels. Yesterday we played at a wedding on a wine farm in Durbanville (congratulations, Julia and Clint!), and once again he made the repertoire fresh and exciting, by doing songs we’d done many times before in completely different feels. Never a dull moment. Today I pay tribute to Wayne Bosch and the way he brightens the world. He’s a world-class musician who deserves to be playing on the biggest stages, at the biggest jazz festivals around the world. I pray that all the elements, internally and externally, come together to move him decisively towards his destiny.

The second person I want to acknowledge today is someone I’ve known about since my childhood, although I’m not sure if we ever met as children. Our parents (her dad, my mom) sang opera together, many years ago, in the Eoan Group, a cultural organisation. In our adult lives, however, we met through a mutual friend, in about 1992. Early on in our friendship, we went away for a weekend with a group of about 8 women, and discovered we could talk for hours! Haha – that hasn’t changed! Over the years, we saw each other very rarely, when she was living in Ireland and would come down to Cape Town on holiday. In November last year, however, fate moved us back into each other’s lives, when we worked on a District 6 project together, interviewing land claimants. During the time we spent driving around the Cape Peninsula, going from area to area and house to house, we did a whole lot of chatting, and in that time we formed a bond that was destined to become one of the strongest, most interesting friendships I have. Inez Woods offered to do life coaching with me at a time that I couldn’t afford her sessions, so we decided our collaboration would entail an exchange of skills. We spent many hours in many coffee shops and restaurants, having these sessions that seemed to fill both our tanks and have a motivating effect on both of us. We’d brainstorm ideas and talktalktalk until we were exhausted, but each would leave with new ideas and long To Do Lists to tackle before our next meeting. I met Inez two days ago for another coffee-shop-brainstorming-session, and this time we looked back at 2011 - each one finding it harder to acknowledge our own achievements than to see each other’s successes – and started looking at 2012 with some seriousness. Each of us had set our sights on certain goals, and we realize now that 2011 was just the beginning. When I’m with Inez, I am filled with excitement about how much is possible. I don’t know how she does it, but she makes me feel like I can go out there and achieve all my goals and dreams. She has an energizing effect on me, and she never lets me off the hook! She’s an excellent life coach, and most of my successes this year can be attributed to her influence on me. She’s hardcore, I can tell you, but if you seriously want to stop wading in the shallows and want to start swimming strongly towards your target, she’s someone you should consider working with. Her blog is inezwoods.wordpress.com, and she’s also on Facebook. This year she started the WAG Network, with WAG standing for Women Against the Grain – check out her website www.wagnetwork.co.za and watch out for this movement, because its awesome founder, Inez Woods, is going to rock your world.

And finally, I’d like to pay tribute to someone in my house, someone I gave birth to almost 17 years ago, and someone who’s grown into one of the finest people I know – my son, Nick Geffen. In the first half of last year, he started having discomfort in his left knee, which developed into such debilitating pain, that he ended up having surgery. He spent most of last year dealing with the ramifications of this condition (the cartilage below his knee-cap wears away), including missing school, having to give up sport and having to use crutches for an extended period of time. This year, it became apparent that his right knee needed surgery as well, which was what happened. The transformation of this young man, since the second operation, has been profound. About three weeks ago, he finally started walking without crutches and the day that he climbed his first flight of stairs unaided – and without swinging on the banister – he described the achievement to me with tears in his eyes. He’s learnt, in the most extreme way, never to take anything for granted. He’s 16, he’s someone who loves school and enjoys studying, someone with a lust for life like I’ve never seen before, and he’s emerged from the past two years with more wisdom and spirituality than most people achieve in a lifetime. He is someone who inspires me constantly, someone whose zest and passion will move him through life with that huge smile fixed on his beautiful face. Last year had its own challenges for our relationship, when he decided to live with his father and not come to my house every second week as per the schedule, but, with counselling and the healing that comes with the passage of time, we got through that, and we now enjoy an understanding that surpasses anything we might have had. My life is enriched and brightened by this young man, and I am blown away by his capacity to live life and to do so on his own terms, with the compassion and integrity he shows. Wow!

I am blessed by so many people’s presence in my life, and today I felt a strong compulsion to say this about these three angels.