in the middle of the middle?

But when it comes to time, where is the middle?

My friends and I, as we have our second round of pandemic birthdays and are still, each year, amazed to discover that apparently we are 'grown-ups' now, have been pondering the particular complexities of reaching middle-age in the middle of a pandemic.

It stands to reason that every age will feel the effects of lockdown etc in relation to the age they are during this, and no one can really claim their experience to be worse than any other's (except maybe that poor 20-30 crew, I do really feel for those guys), but I think us of the middle-age are having a particularly interesting time of it for a couple of reasons.

Growing acceptance of one's own mortality and the inevitable death of your parents and loved ones?

BOOM - global flu pandemic to just really drive that home and place the risk of it literally around every corner.

Growing realisation that you might run out of time to visit all those far-flung destinations on your 'bucket list' (horrible term)?

BOOM - travel restrictions starting from your front gate to extending to most other parts of the world.

Growing unease at whether you've made enough provision for retirement / your children's future / the medical costs of growing older?

BOOM - total loss of career and all prospects of it ever picking up again PLUS flooding of the dwindling jobs market with thousands of younger and more relevant jobless candidates.

Growing independence from your children and freedom to plan around them and return to a bit of your own life?

BOOM - homeschooling, a thing you SWORE you'd never do, becomes your reality, school days shorten in the absence of extra-murals, kids are at home all the time.

Growing determination to get healthier and stronger and counteract the aging effects of weakening bones and muscle degeneration?

BOOM - all gyms and exercise classes close, or remain open and become cesspools of contamination.

So no, I'm not saying we're having it worse off than anyone else. I'm just saying we're not having it any easier. No one is having it easy.

It just feels like it would all be more manageable if we knew where we were in these things... are we in the middle? Of life? Of the pandemic?

Maybe the advantage of living through this in middle-age is the acceptance we've come to that we'll never know what's coming next. We've seen friends die unexpectedly, we've seen towers fall and countries burn, we've seen fax machines come and go... maybe we've got a better handle than some on the truly unpredictable nature of life.

Maybe we should know better than to overthink this.

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.

suspended

I stood on the stoep and watched a butterfly. One of those big orange and white faux-monarch ones, I could see his/er feelers twitching.
And then, a starling. Picked it out the air.
So quick, the insect had no more knowledge of it's end approaching than a pea suddenly speared with a fork on a plate.
The bird whipped away, and empty blueness remained.

The dabchicks are back. This is a sure sign that autumn is coming. They are the smallest, and the loudest, birds on the lake. They are very shy.
A family of them float in the water just off the shore. I stand from the table where I have been sitting and with an almost imperceptible plop, in one movement, they are gone.
The tiniest ripple remains.

The water weed sits dense and murky along the edges of the lake. This is the late summer bloom, close to the surface, rich and mysterious.
A huge fish hangs suspended in a grey-green clearing. I sit very still on the bank and watch him, faintly his tail sways, I think I see an eyeball swivel.
I blink, and he is gone.
A massive creature, he manipulates water to envelope and hide him.
The faintest wisp of stirred up silt remains for a second and then drifts away to belie his ever being there.

This week was heavy, and awkward and slow. I have this stage, paused between jobs, when I get crabby and frustrated and bleak. I have work (yes, I am grateful) but no pressure and the lack thereof retards me so I drift pendulous and heavy through my days, wanting to be productive but spending more time suspended. Thoughtful. Slow. Prone to existential examination which is neither healthy nor particularly interesting. I bore myself.
But unlike the butterfly, I know the jolt will come. I know if I hang out here too long I'll be in trouble. Like the fish I know this oasis of calm is encircled by the dark woods of the unknown and I shan't have too long to spend here. Like the dabchick I know I will soon be swimming fast to get my head back above water, back into safer territory.

And when that happens this week of disquiet will fade and disperse into my life and just be that one moment, when I was suspended, before action and movement and change.