Moving my blog

This blog has moved to http://tactilesoul.wordpress.com/. Please visit me there.

Thank you for letting me fall apart.

As you may or may not have gathered, the last few months have been rather stressful and, unlike my usual flee into the written word, I’ve lived completely in the real world. No-wonder I feel so out of control. No way to bring structure to the chaos if the words stay inside. No linear “sorting” of things confused, into orderly stacks.

It’s been an interesting time. A difficult time. A heartwrenching time, filled with pain and doubt and moral debate. And I’ve had to sort through it all in my head, unable to share on paper, the words unspeakable, absorbing the confusion and anger, the guilt and the anguish of those around me.

No, don’t get me wrong, I’ve spewed out my own anger and guilt and grief, but not very constructively. What I’m trying to do here is say thank you. A really big thank you to those of you who have told me I needn’t apologise for cancelling arrangements, going to bed and leaving a house full of guests to be entertained by my long suffering husband, crying drunken tears of rage and despair, having loud and inappropriate arguments over religion at a very respectable dinner party. So instead of apologising, I want to say thank you, to my husband, to my mother-in-law and to my friends who have been there to listen to me, to hold me and to indulge me in my very public falling apart. I think I’m okay now. Because of you!

A letter to my daughter

Dear Isla,

I can’t take away the pain. I think those are the hardest words a mother can say out loud. Actually, they’re the hardest to acknowledge in the quiet spaces of my soul too. The fact that my love, as all encompassing and profound as it is, cannot protect you from experiencing life and death and loss is one of the most painful realisations of my own life.

All I can really do is provide a space for you to be. A space for you to mourn and to feel your pain, because bunny, you do need to feel it. I can try to make that space as secure as I can by surrounding you with my love so that all the sharp edges of your reality can bump and cut into me and you can see that no matter what, my love remains unbroken.

I want you to know that despite what you think, despite all the anger and hurt that you’re feeling right now, you will get through this... we’ll get through this, and as much as you feel that you’re all alone, you’re not. I’m right here beside you and I’ll “keep bleeding love”.

love
mom

Things I wish I could force my children to learn.

To live remains an art which everyone must learn, and which no one can
teach. ~Havelock Ellis

I’m on a quick approach to 45 and I’ve made more than my fair share of mistakes in life... I have few regrets, even the huge mistakes have taught me invaluable lessons. From all that I’ve learned, I wish there was some way I could implant the lessons in my children.

This list is far from complete, but it’s a start. Who knows, maybe my kids will even read it one day.

You’re never as fat as you think you are. (this lesson is especially for my gorgeous and beautifully proportioned 12 year old daughter) I’ve always obsessed over my weight, yes, even as a twelve year old. This may have had something to do with my mother spicing my childhood with comments like “rather waste on the plate than waste on your hips”. Yup, I don’t think she ever heard about the children starving in Africa that most parents spoke of – oh wait, I was one of them, trying to please mom. Looking back at photographs of myself, I was NOT fat, not even close. As I got older my weight yo-yo’d as I tried to get thinner and messed with my metabolism. Now, in middle age, I battle with a few extra kilo’s, but I think if I’d had a healthier self image as a young girl, I may have had a more balanced eating plan.

Make time to pursue your passion, no matter how busy you think you are. There were so many things I was passionate about but just never made the time to pursue. With a family and school and a full-time job, there just weren’t enough hours in the day. Well, I’ve learned that you have to make those hours. Set aside a block of time to do what you love, cut out other stuff from your life that take up your time, and don’t let anything interfere with that work. When I think what I’ve achieved over the last few years, and especially the last six months I wonder why I wasted all that time!

Save a little every month, even when you think you can’t afford to. I’ve learned that a little goes a long way. I wish I’d learned it sooner. If I had saved 10% of my earnings – and bearing in mind I had my first part time job at age 14 – I could probably have been semi-retired by now.

All the things you stress over, it’s not worth an ulcer! When things are happening to you right now, they are all encompassing. I had deadlines and projects and people breathing down my neck, and my stress levels went through the roof. I don’t regret the hard work but I think I would have been less stressed if I could have just realised that it wouldn’t matter a single bit just a few years down the road. Perspective is a good thing to learn.

Balance is essential. An unbalanced life leads to ulcers (see above) and worse. It is so important to make time for yourself and for your family. You may have to make compromises financially or professionally, but at the end of the day, what is it all for?

Nurture the special relationships in your life. People come and go in your life, but there are a few, if you’re lucky you can count your family among them, that are consistently there. That don’t have unrealistic expectations, that don’t harp on your mistakes, that share the times between the spaces of your life. Hang on to these. Value them above all else. And most of all, know that you are blessed.

Keep a journal. I kept a journal my entire life, and I mean that. I learned to read and write at age four, and began writing my secret thoughts down. I went through a strange time about 20 years ago and burned all my journals. That is THE major regret of my life. I continued journaling and then, during another strange time about 10 years ago, was so concerned at having my thoughts “out there”, I stopped. BIG mistake. You learn so much from reading back through your journals. It is a wonderful measure of where you’ve been and how far you’ve come. It’s an outlet, a therapy and a place in which to be totally honest and completely yourself. Just do it!

Mother Africa

for Angry African...

Nothing restores the soul quite like nature in African. We all need to take time out every now and then. Holidays are great, and having itchy feet, I’m not really fussy about the destination. I just love to travel. BUT.... when I’m feeling what a co-blogger, Angry African, calls The Heavy, there is only one place that takes the world away.

It’s a little farm near the Lesotho border called Hoekfontein. Cuddled into the foothills of the Lesotho Mountains, Hoekfontein has no electricity and no cell phone reception. Oh, and you stay in Ox-wagons – yep, real ones, restored lovingly by the farm owner, Gerrit, and fitted with bunk beds.

What, you may ask, is the attraction? Well, it depends on who you are. For me it’s the one place in the world that I can really escape, everything. My kids love it. In fact, four years ago we were on holiday, an incentive trip that we’d won, in Disneyworld no less, my youngest chirped up in one of the lines to one of the rides “When can we go to the ox wagons again?”. He was 5yrs old.


I digress. What’s the attraction? Well, it’s the epitome of Africa. The smells, the sounds, the people. I don’t know what you hear about South Africa, those of you from the USA, UK, Australia, Europe. But nothing you hear can really describe it. For those of us who are truly African, and there are many, black, white, green, blue, it is something in your soul. Yes, we’ve had a checkered past. There are those who battle with the concept of “the New South Africa” and harbour resentment and animosity, however these people are in the minority. For us true Africans, we are truly Madiba’s “rainbow nation”. We are people of the earth, we are connected through Ubuntu to the land that we call home, and to each another. We stand for and by one another.

Africa has a jarring, all encompassing beauty. Africa is a land that is harsh and abundant in equal measures, a land of contradictions. Africa is a mother who does not coddle her children, for she knows that the world is cruel and they need to learn strength. The people of South Africa are anything but mediocre. We are an opinionated nation, holding strong beliefs whether they are right or wrong – we don’t sit on the fence.

As an African, when you need a place of rest, somewhere to slake the thirsting of your soul, to ease the heat of your brow, there is nowhere on God’s earth that can ease the pain but Africa. And for me, that place in Africa is found in the foothills of Lesotho, where the stillness speaks and the smells and tastes and sights fill my soul... and I know that I am home.