adornment

Oh look, another post all about me.

I had ankle surgery 3 weeks ago (yes, again, this time the other foot - what the actual....?), and the evening before I took off all my jewelry and marveled at the amount of hardware I carry around on a daily basis.

Bangles (all on my right arm), earrings, finger rings, toe rings.

The toe rings I've been wearing since 1998 and in all that time they've only come off for surgeries and late pregnancies.

And I have one solid silver bangle I've been wearing for decades which won't come off. I left it on with instructions to cut it off me if necessary.

The point is, I like to decorate myself. And in recent years that has extended to tattoos.

Have I been teased about having a midlife crisis, just like if a man my age brought a vintage red convertible sports car? Yes, yes I have. 

And you know what, while an overly dramatic term (a 'crisis' for gods sake), the concept is pretty sound. Yes, one hits a stage in one's life when one realises that if there are things you want to do you should actually do them now. Because yes, life is short and you never know what's around the next corner (so burn the fancy candle, use the good dishes, eat the imported chocolate etc etc), but also because the longer I stay on board this earthly ship the more I realise that what's important are very, very few things - love, family, friendship, happiness - and what's not important is really just for fun.

Painting a picture on my calf is for fun.

Which leads me to my next point. 

I have so many marks upon this 48 year old body that I have not chosen. Scars from childhood, child birth and more recently TWO (seriously, what the actual....) ankle surgeries. Eczema, acne, weird moles, insect bites, cat claws, that one time the nail which scratched me was rusty... let's not even talk about wrinkles.

Choosing some art to live alongside these feels like quite an empowering thing to do.

This is my modernist take on the fynbos I have lived amongst my whole life. A homage in part to the delicate ink dot cartography I watched my father do by hand when I was a child. A Miro inspired floral bouquet with a small nod to Orla Kiely.

This is my leg and this is the art I have chosen to adorn it with in this, my mid life.

when I grow up I want to be an old woman

There was a woman I followed on IG for quite a long while. A white American woman about my age, she is an illustrator with a big brain and often posted really insightful things.

She had very good posts in 2020 about George Floyd and the BLM movement, about allyship. She went to the Ukrainian border when the invasion happened and worked on the ground to assist fleeing Ukrainian refugees. I have a lot of respect for her. In most things.

I also followed her for her hair journey. She had, as I have, decided to stop colouring her hair and embrace the crone (my phrase which I employ more often and with less humour with every passing year). She has fairly wild hair like mine, hair with a mind of its own which requires a LOT of work if one has any interest in keeping it 'presentable' and a fairly tough skin if one doesn't care for social norms of presentability.

I have spent my whole life vacillating between the two. (The caring and the not caring, the work I've never really stuck with. I just ... can't.) 

Anyhoo. Emily and I were growing out years of hair colour and going grey together and feeling empowered and strong, she would post updates after hair dresser visits about not colouring her hair and how the grey was growing through and generally overshared in a way quite common to Americans and very gratifying to those of us more filtered but deeply curious.

And then one day, Emily appeared in a new headshot. With a bouncy head of styled curls, meticulously high-lighted and low-lighted in strands of multiple shades, woven together in a delicate and pleasing dance, and declared that she had decided to go back to colour because she 'didn't want to be seen to be giving up'.

Giving. Up.

Well fuck you Emily.

The irony of a B&W photo does not allude me. I went looking for a picture and found this one from exactly 1 year ago - 6 June 2022.
That felt like a synchronicity I couldn't ignore.

I no longer follow Emily, but I am still enjoying going grey. And every time I find a new silvery streak I sing Michelle Shocked to myself and think maybe, just maybe, if I give it enough time, my hair will come into its own in a full head of enviable silver locks. Maybe this is the glory it's been waiting for these last 48 years...

My grey hair, and this song lyric, is my daily reminder that aging is a privilege. One not afforded to everyone as I well know.

When I grow up, I want to be an old woman.

what I've been up to lately

Pretty much everything Lyndsay Rush lists here...

 ... her IG handle is @maryoliversdrunkcousin and she's the best thing on there right now.

I honestly couldn't love this list more. I'd get it tattooed down my forearm to read every day (if my friend Janine hadn't wisely declared NO WORDS as rule no. 1 for tattooing). 

Just making a fool of myself.

Instead I have it stuck up at my desk.

Making it happen.

It's my 47th birthday today and I have Covid. Well, my youngest tested positive on Tuesday and I've not been feeling very well so I'm going with I have it too.

Making a big deal.

47 weirdly feels quite seriously grown up! Not just as in the year sounding grown up, but I actually feel it a bit. It's hard to describe but I feel... capable of making big decisions. Is that the definition of a grown up?

Making it up as I go.

We've booked a weekend away, a cabin in the mountains with just us 4 and the dogs. I booked it months ago and I couldn't be more grateful, now that we're isolating and unable to see anyone else anyway.

...making a break for it.

The last few months have been fairly two steps forward, one step back. I should know by now that when I do a big optimistic beginning of the year post the universe is gonna have something to say about that.

Making a mess of things.

After my triumphant return to CrossFit I managed to slip a disc (old-fashioned term but a good description none-the-less) HANGING UP LAUNDRY. Way to feel like an old lady...

Booked off CrossFit for a long while, lots and lots of physio, lots of lame-ass walking for exercise.

Making a face.

But I did take advantage of the downtime to get a new tattoo. A paper airplane looping off my ankle surgery scar to show lightness and agility after that long time of infirmity. 

The irony of getting it now when I am once again somewhat infirm is not lost on me.

I've actually gotten really good at making a mountain out of a molehill.

Lots and lots of lame ass walking. Lame in comparison to rowing like a beast and busting out burpees and lifting huge weights that is. I've nothing against walking itself, I quite like it. And I do have some magnificent places to walk around here.

Making the best of things.

And after the walking, the resting. For a long while flat on my back was the only really comfortable way to be so there was quite a lot of that. Much to the joy of this floof.

Making my bed every morning.

We got away on a week long mini-break! It was delicious and affirming and super fun, it deserves it's own post. But it also allowed me to add a nice big thigh bruise to my list of ailments, after getting kicked by a cute but savage miniature horse.

I've really been trying to prioritize making a scene.

A beautiful autumnal visit to one of my favourite places with some of my favourite people.

Making it count.

And lots and lots and lots of lovely, rewarding, exhausting, hilarious parenting of these two prides and joy.

Making tiny, beautiful things I'll be proud to leave behind.

Let the birthday weekend begin!

Making my own luck.

we can do hard things

 ...but jeez, we will generally go to huge lengths not to.

Well, I do at least. When I have a choice, I'm all about that path of least resistance, min effort for max gain, keeping it simple, keeping it fun, taking the shortest way round.  

But already in these first few weeks of 2022 I've done some hard things - and it's felt really good.

I've gone on two group motorbike rides with total strangers. 

The first just me with a bunch of cool kids, but on my small bike on a route that I know well. The second with Charl, but on my big bike, a totally unknown route and at least 25 other proficient riders. Shooweee, my nerves!

Motorbike riders are cool right? And ballsy, and mostly all they want to talk about are bikes. This crowd is quite a bit younger than me, with hipper gear and better stories and way more experience. But I kept my nerve and un-wedgied my big girl panties and tried earnestly to remember my bike's specs for the coffee chat and not fall too far behind on the ride and to not forget to put on my gloves before my helmet like a newbie.

So rad.

How cute is my bike though?

I've gone back to CrossFit.

Six weeks short of two years later, I walked back in to a CrossFit box. With my atrophied muscles and my pandemic weight gain and my complete lack of fitness I've signed up to a box where I know no one. That first class I was a bundle of nerves, but I walked (staggered) out of there feeling like a champ and have been back and have signed up for more. What. A. Vibe.

How cute are my shoes though?

And then just today, another hard thing.

How cute is this though?

From motor-biking to CrossFit to puzzles which require reading glasses - 2022 has had some challenges already. But I'll take these over drought, death and disease - some of the challenges of the last few years - any day.

My wish for this year is to have agency. To not just be reactive to the shit life throws at us, but proactive in doing things which make me feel stronger and better and more in control. 

We can do hard things, and not all hard things have to suck.

in the African night

On Sunday evening I did a most beautiful thing with a dearest friend. 

Another outdoor movie. This time on a picnic blanket in the magnificent Kirstenbosch Gardens, still one of my favourite places in the world. 

This time Out of Africa, possibly one of my most watched films of all time. But not for years.

Out of Africa is so precious that I'd trust few people to watch it with me. I will not tolerate any eye-rolling, sighing at its length or critical analysis of its historical facts. You must be invested, all in, to share this cinematic experience with me and as the opening credits rolled and we both snuggled down on our blanket with instantly dewy eyes, there was no other place in the world I would rather have been.

The dreaded South Easter wind had been howling in Cape Town for 10 solid days. The end of year pressure of school and work and Xmas madness mounting. The 4th wave, Omicron, travel bans looming. Friends in distress and friends in despair. Loss and betrayal. It had been a really tough week.

But the wind dropped that evening. The velvety-darkness fell as that haunting opening music rolled across the lawn towards us. 

And as I watched, past versions of myself crept out from between the scenes bringing with them memories - of outfits I constructed in my childhood bedroom to dress like Karen Blixen (the white cotton blouse, buttoned at the neck and pinned with a brooch, the striped African print scarf tied over one shoulder, the khaki skirt I rolled at the waist to get just the right length on my shin), of standing on the dewy lawn in Swaziland in 1994 looking out at the mist lying in the valleys and channeling Meryl Streep, of years and years and years of yelling 'Hello the house!' when arriving at my bestie's (she who lay next to me watching this now). The way that music had always made me feel, the yearning for adventure and the happiness of thinking that even if I wasn't living her life, I lived in Africa already and that was a good start. 

As the film rolled on the sky got darker and more dramatic, and I found myself gazing away from the screen to take in the enormity and beauty of it, and have one of those lucid moments of perfect clarity one occasionally has, where you can stop within an experience, to realise that this is one of the best things you'll do in your life.

Time slowed and exhaled, we wept and laughed. On screen the sound of crickets chirping filled the African night, as around us in the gardens the sounds of crickets chirping, filled the African night.

Bliss.

pandeversary

Thurs 25 March

It's warm, hot actually, and perfectly still outside. Not a ripple on the lake save those from the departing tail feathers of a lazy water bird.

It's Lockdown Weather (I think we might always call it that), and it feels uneasy.

Is it okay to claim PTSD if nothing really, really bad happened to you? Or is living through a lockdown, a pandemic, bad enough?

For like some kind of PTSD this feeling the last few weeks has been one of caution. Lightly skim over the emotions from This Time Last Year and they're manageable, weird but controllable - linger on them and you realise there's some black dogs lurking there.

A few weeks back it was the anniversary of the last day I did my job properly. The last day I spent in a venue with a group of people from various parts of the world, meeting and working together to advance a mechanism to tackle social injustice.

It was as the wave was breaking and things were changing every day. Some of the delegates pulled out at the last minute, opting not to travel. Some wore masks on their flights - the only ones in a packed airplane. The Sierra Leoneans joked that a few years back they were persona non grata (Ebola) and this time it was the Italians. We sanitized the pen in between registrations. The day after the event the WHO declared Covid-19 a global pandemic and the world started closing down. It felt like we'd slid through just as the gate slammed shut behind us.

The anniversary of that day was hard. I deeply miss my work. Yes, the income, obviously - there are few feelings as good as a whack of hard-earned FOREX landing in your account - but more than that, the purpose, the identity.

Similar to when a person dies, or leaves, there's a version of you which goes with them. That Molly has been missing for a year now, and I'm not sure whether we'll ever see her again.

I did a yoga class that pandeversary morning, tears leaking out the corners of my eyes, I came home and prepped for an important birthday the next day. I chuckled remembering how last year I got stuck in my car, full of helium balloons, on the way home from that event, on the other side of town waiting for the power to come back on so I could fill up with fuel and get home - I remembered how I thought that was hard, and frustrating, how trapped I felt then. I had no idea.

Fri 26 March

Every day these last few weeks has been a 'do you remember', a 'this day last year' - the whole world's been doing it. Every emotion is shared, yet also deeply personal.

This day last year we were going into hard lockdown. Today was the last day we could move unrestricted and from midnight tonight we were in what one of my friends recently referred to as Le Grande Slowdown.

Then this was deeply weird and cut through with the strangest mix of adrenalin and uselessness. This year, with some small glimmer of light on the horizon, this is deeply weird and cut through with a mix of grief and optimism. 

Realistically I think my career path has changed forever, and the loss there cuts deep. Idealistically in some ways we are facing a brave new world, and that's exciting. But for now, as we shadow-walk beside the versions of ourselves from a year ago, the emotions are big ones - and we should acknowledge them.

And as always, there's a meme for this...

flu, but not THAT flu

Honestly, what kind of loser gets a different flu during a flu pandemic?

Me.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The beaches finally opened, earlier than expected on the 2nd of Feb. And as if the gods had decided to  finally cut us some slack it was the most magnificent summers day. We swam twice!

And twice more that week - long luxurious swims in which the ocean embraced us like a long-lost lover and we couldn't bring ourselves to leave (you say goodbye first, no you say goodbye first) until we finally returned to land with shriveled toes and water-logged ears.

That Saturday we spent at one of our favourite places on earth - swimming and picnicking with my parents (all outdoors) and friends. It was a magical summery day and one of those rare moments in which everything felt peaceful and okay, just for a minute.

And then the next morning - sick.

Fever, chills, body ache, headaches. Restless sweaty nights and fevered dreams, concerns about having infected my parents and the girls not being able to start long-awaited school. The dreaded nasal swab, the wait, a negative Covid test. Wtf?

Help from friends to get the last minute school prep done, infinite patience and care from my lovely husband, long horrible disjointed nights and tedious days moving from bed to couch to bed.

A full week of fevers, another full week of recovery, a gradual return to functionality... I still need an afternoon lie-down, I still can't fathom exercising, or drinking wine, I still get dizzy standing up too fast. Vit B jabs in the butt ('You don't have any extra vaccines lying around do you?' ha ha joke to the clinic sister who's probably heard it many times already). 

That one magical week of summer has gained almost fantasy status in my memory. The weather is icky now and the sea rough and cold. But the summer is not over, good weather and more swims lie ahead.

I just... really can't believe that wasn't Covid? Antibody testing in a couple of weeks I think...

update on the 'sabbatical'

What have I been up to?

Well, not blogging clearly. Dammit.

But lots of actual things in the world with real people, which is good right?

I've spent some time with my little nephews. At nearly 1 and nearly 3 they are both just delicious, the older one chatty and funny and busy - the baby still baby enough to have a good cuddle. These are probably 'my' last babies until grandchildren and it's been wonderful to have this time with them.

I've been working out - 4 times a week at least, sometimes even getting up before 7 on a Saturday for an extra class (this is totally unheard of for me). 

I've made some progress on clutter and sorting out my home office and bagging stuff up for donation etc, but not as much as I thought I would.
Ditto personal admin. I've not been great on that. Turns out it's still as utterly boring as ever, I just don't have the same excuses about not getting round to it. I've done some good work on generating more though - namely reversing into my friend's car outside our own house a few weeks back! Ack.
Ditto website updates, inbox clearing and filing - I've spent very little time on all that rubbish.
Because really, do I want to spend any time on my laptop when I don't have to? Fek no.
(See also, reasons I've not been blogging.)

I've done some quality appreciation of this beautiful place I live though.

A cycle tour through the City on a magnificent blue and gold day. From the touristy bustle of the waterfront, up Adderley street in the heart of the city, along pee- and dagga- smelling pavements outside the Station, past City Hall (where 1 year ago I was in the THICK of a massive project), through the serene Company Gardens, up cobble-stoned streets into the Bo Kaap and then down through Green Point and back to the sea.
This city will never, ever lose its allure.

Then the first leg of a summer project to swim in all (25?) tidal pools the Cape Peninsula has to offer. We managed 4 on a very blustery and overcast day, with plans to conquer the rest before the summer is out.

St James tidal pool, pictured on a very different day!

I've been a really great friend.
I've lifted kids and baked birthday cakes and helped arrange parties and run errands and delivered wine and covered bills and been (very freely) available for drinks and hang outs.
This all sounds fairly smug, but I don't believe in altruism and will happily admit I've gained so much from all this. Not self-satisfaction, but genuine happiness in being of service to those I love.

My people have been so solidly there for me the last few tumultuous years, all while going through some pretty horrible stuff themselves. We're all juggling so many balls, all feeling like we're dropping most. It has been such a gift to have the time and resources to help catch some, to do small things to help, to do big things to share.
How lucky to have beloved people in your life to do things for?

I've fostered an appreciation for the small things. How a weekend can be a weekend when you're not spending it catching up on everything you've not been able to do during the week. How dinner prep can be so much more satisfying when you're not slamming it together too late and too distracted to do it properly. How chats on the couch with my girls can wander on uninterrupted into all kinds of topics when nothing else is calling me away.

It's been so lovely to be here for them, my sweet girls. It's been so lovely to be able to give them the best of myself. Well, most of the time.

And finally, excitingly, some real progress on our planned home renovation! We have an architect. We have plans. We have moments of utter weakness at the challenges of packing this place up and subjecting ourselves to dust and builders and massive logistical challenges. But we have progress, and 2020 is set to be the year of the house.

Exciting times.

first rule of CrossFit*

 

I thought this was funny before I started CrossFit. Now it's hilarious.

I have two friends who've been at it for about a year. About the same amount of time my ankle was either incapacitating me in pain, or recovering from the surgery intended to heal it.

When I was laid up in my recovery room (or 'on my nice holiday' as the same two friends like to call it), they would come and hang out and 'entertain me' by flexing their muscles and talking about the WOD and so-and-so at the gym and how much they could snatch and a bunch of other incomprehensible things. 

I was so not interested.

Part of it was my disbelief at how useless I was, had been for a long time, when it came to exercise and getting in shape.

My ankle had been a factor, a large one, but to be honest I stopped exercising a long time before that. I was just really not into breaking a sweat, or feeling uncomfortable.

Part of my boredom was envy - they were looking great and their passion for it was palatable.

Shame and envy, not a good combo for the existential dread.

Some months after I was walking again, the end of July to be exact, I felt a shift. I was feeling so out of shape and suddenly filled with the need to MOVE, to flex and stretch and test my new foot and DO SOMETHING already. 

But I was still in a lot of pain, and really apprehensive about what I could do and how radically unfit I felt.

One afternoon on the side of the hockey field I spoke to a school mum friend, we were talking about swimming, yoga - low impact ways I could get back into exercise. Then I came home to cook supper for one of my now lean and ripped friends ... two bottles of wine later and I'd committed to going to a CrossFit class with her the next morning.

The existentials were nothing on the dread I felt waking up that morning, hungover and scared.

I dressed with major anxiety and drove myself there deciding to just not think about it, and ready to HATE everybody and everything.

I did hate everybody, and I really nearly cried, but it turns out I wasn't as unfit as I thought I was, and my ankle handled fine.

I woke that night, and tried to get up for some reason. I couldn't move.

I carefully lowered myself back into bed, flinching in pain, and then I smiled. This felt good.

Boy, I drank the Kool Aid fast after that.

Obvs I had to start with new sneakers ... and then I was away.

It's been 3 months. My ankle pain has reduced by about 85%. I feel great. I need to workout. I'm firming, I'm losing some weight. I like to sweat. I'm getting fit.

So yeah, now I am a CrossFitter. Good lord this is a weird old life.

*always talk about CrossFit

fortyfuckin'four

This whole week I've been nagging myself - you can't let May go by without a post!
May is your month, May is important.
Once a month is bad enough for the ol' blog - don't skip one!

I did this thing back in Feb. On the anniversary of Zahida's death. My favourite punctuation tattooed on my forearm ...

... for endings and beginnings, and the never-ending cycle of both, for things left unsaid ... for room to imagine ... to trail off and pick up another thread ... to pause and think ... to leave a space for someone else to occupy, or leave ... to assert yourself subtly ... or show doubt, vulnerability ... for life and whatever comes after ...

My 101 year old Granny slipped off in March.

In April we said goodbye to our beloved Khoki cat - our first baby, our friend for 19 years.

But still the sun rose every morning, some times more magnificently than others, and the world turned around the sun and, despite everything, it was my birthday.

And I decided that of all the lessons I'd like to impart on my daughters - this said in the knowledge that one never knows what will stick and what will not - I'd like one of them to be that you make your own fun, you have agency in your own happiness, and that birthdays deserve a party, no matter your age.

I spent my birthday surrounded by my bests. We hosted a lunch and that weekend, for the first time since mid March, I could walk. I could faff around the house making nice for my friends, I could prep a meal and lay a table, I could do a 'food board' ala Instagram, I could host and fetch another bottle of wine and more ice and a sharp knife and juice for a child ... I could WALK.

Even at the ripe old age of 4fuckin'4 my body can still heal. In the midst of my 40's I can do a highly responsible job for an international client and still know the value in taking a day off for illicit mid-week treats - this time an indulgent meal and a massage at the wondrous Babylonstoren ...

  

 

I am of that age where you realise it doesn't last forever. And as cliched as that sounds it's a real thing, and a natural thing. It's great that we live our 20's thinking it'll last forever, it's natural that we spend our 30's too busy to think of anything else much, and then the 40's come and with it comes loss, if you've been lucky enough to avoid it until then, and the reality of aging and the inkling that it will all end, it really will, and in that, the freedom to think 'fuck it, let's do it'.

I loved being young and feckless and living in the moment without even realising it. I love living in the moment and realising it, even more.
Best life, it's the only one worth living.

international social justice day

Apparently sometime last week was International Social Justice Day (who decides these I do not know), but reading that made me so grateful, again, for the work I've been able to do (for an astounding 17 years now!) assisting and supporting some of the most dedicated and hardworking social justice activists in our country.

I'm still not really sure how I managed to fall into this.

As a pre-teen the running joke in our family was my allergy to the word 'responsibility'. Being the oldest of 3 I guess it was a natural backlash against having to be older and wiser, more responsible than my seemingly carefree younger brothers.

But responsible I have become - for giant budgets, complicated international travel arrangements, hordes of delegates, deadlines and deliverables - I am often the hinge upon which it all swings, the stick upon which the plates are spinning, handling the immense stress of logistical success so that my clients don't have to, so that the participants - the social justice activists - can concentrate on the WORK.
The work of listening, of speaking for the voiceless, of finding the platform for their voices, and making them heard.

Recently I got in touch with an old lefty friend of my parents, and chatting to him brought back memories of sleepily listening in on their rigorous debate, around dinner tables and braai fires, often wine-fueled, always fascinating.

I learned so much from those evenings - not just great swear words - but how to agree to disagree, what injustice looked like, how to fight it, intersectionality (before that was even a concept probably), how to protest without getting arrested, what to do if you were arrested, how many people it took to build a movement (not just the big names), how to put your ego aside and do work for a greater good.

It was when bringing up these memories that I realised this was the foundation of the work I do now. A logistical mind is one thing - that's some weird shit I got born with (from my Granny Molly I think) and eventually made peace with, but the ability to use that in a social justice space (see, I can even speak the lingo) with empathy and an innate understanding of those specific challenges is a learned skill, learned in part by the example of my parents - social activists themselves in many ways - and in part from those long weekend evenings of being exposed to highly inappropriate discussions and arguments. 

Many of the activists I work with say that the key to social justice is for everyone at the table (more lingo see, I'm fluent) to work to their strengths. To find their skills, be acknowledged for them and be given the chance to use them for the greater good.

I think I might have found mine, and I'm so grateful to have found the perfect niche in which to flex them.

camera roll: August

August.

Crayfish curry - a taste of summer in the depths of winter.

Always with the rainbows.

Sunny, but icy cold.

My other kind of therapy. 

Crazy eyes found on my phone.

Hidden Cape Town spaces.

Weird Cape Town spaces.

A little bit of nature I left in the bustle of OR Tambo International Airport.

This made me happy.