Sunday 29th May 2011

It's that line other people have written about, spoken about in many a therapy session, I’m sure. That line that’s a tightrope, the edge of an abyss, a cliff, the river below raging, one's existence irrelevant in its flow.

This morning I woke up and asked my angel to embrace me, and take me back to sleep. It was too early, there were too many thoughts lurking, waiting for airtime, waiting for their place to occupy and energise in the mess of the mind.  Sleep approached, that delicious feeling, the surge and cocoon of those chemicals, the precursor to slumber, but they didn’t subside, didn’t settle in and take me to some other reality of dreams which may be neither here, nor there.

I thought of the man I’d recently had breakfast with, and how I could contact him today and suggest a coffee, a beach stroll/loll, a drink, even though I don’t drink these days. And then I thought of a glass of deep, earthy red, a fulsome Shiraz or Cabernet and how that would be nice, how that might even be nice for breakfast. Like those days long ago when I would wake up and resolve to have nothing to do with the world, no contact with humanity and proceed to smoke a joint all to myself and settle into the delicious high, hidden and veiled, anonymous and unavailable, how easy that was, how it soothed me.

But I am in my friends’ spare bedroom this morning, their five year old daughter goofing around, screeching and blaring inanities, and yes she’s loveable and a precious little thing, but on the edge of this line I am so quiet, and so needy, so hungry, that I don’t have it to give her.

I miss my flat, my eagle’s nest with my books and art and things, my kitchen full of delicious comfort and my sewing machine and fabrics. I don’t know what happened, how I uprooted like that, how I ripped it all up and landed here, without a plan, without a trace. People keep asking where I live and my answer comes out that I’m a nomad, looking for a home, spoilt for choice. I think I’m breaking all the rules, all the sensible lines of what I should be doing, doing to create: a life, abundance, a relationship. Perhaps my life has been a series of misguided decisions – like giving up my apartment in a gesture of welcoming another in – it was a house-for-one, and I thought I could affect the alchemy of life by stepping out of that nest and making myself available. 

My flat in South Yarra

This line, this edge, is so weary, so overused. Deep footprints worn into the grey rock, scuffed into the viewing platform where many before and after me have contemplated the jump, only to wearily turn back to their tired lives, deep breath in as we approach yet another excavation.

“Don’t you learn anything from the work you teach?” someone asked me yesterday. Deep transformational processing and This is where I land, This is where I hesitantly stand.

Lets face it. I’m not doing well. The astrologer said to wait until mid-July, that it’s a terrible time up until then and nothing would be clear until earliest mid June. Even here in the Shire, I feel like I do not belong. My psychologist friend says she and I share the pattern of estrangement, a perception of never belonging. Last night, surrounded by people, who mainly talk about themselves, I felt alone, disconnected, unbelonging.

Today, I feel tired, a bit more uplifted after writing, a bit more able to connect. But I still miss my flat, my privacy, and the touch of a beloved who wants me. 

Wollumbin, Rainmaker, from McAuley's Lane, Myocum

Rules for visitors to the Highveld Park Post Office

Rules for train passengers in Cape Town

She described the feeling as being like a polar bear on a small island of ice, everything melting away around her. There was no apparent panic, only the sense that everything she had held in high value was losing its colour, losing its grasp, losing its ability to dazzle.

The only unclaimed prizes in the treasure hunt of life which still stroked the strings of her heart, still retained soft hues of appealing colour, were the possibility of love and art; the infinite possibility of moving through this life, this passage, with another, and the necessity to create beauty so that the subtler truths, which are the important truths, not submerge in a mire of spreadsheets, appointments, public transport and marketing bombardment.

What a life it had been. The twenties were glamorous and harrowing; money, drugs,  entertainment, death and sex. The thirties were introspective, seizing on maps and doggedly travelling in the identified direction, only to melt down and resurrect financially, vocationally, more than a few times.

Now the forties. Left-over longings for children and family surface like old photographs packed away for some future purpose. Every intimate situation infused with the disappointment that the longing exists within, and may not be met without. The endless baggage dragged into relationships by suitors – children, divorce, separation, disappointment, resentment, financial decimation, homes stripped of their anchors, bitter ex wives, resentful ex husbands. And then the inflammatory trend on the dating websites of people claiming to have ‘no baggage’, or requiring prospects to also have ‘no baggage’.

When I bring this all right back to myself, I’m grateful for the ability to move one day at a time, and surprised that there is little panic in my seemingly intractable situation.

Last year in October I uprooted from my magnificent Melbourne life, packed up my eagle’s nest apartment with the spectacular city view next to the Botanic Gardens, and put my boxes of books and clothing into my friend’s S Kilda ceiling.   

Off to Africa I went, to set up my life there, to be close to my family and put in motion The Enterprise Powerhouse, a program to develop entrepreneurs in low socio-economic areas, which I’d been nurturing for a year.

I was welcomed back with warmth and interest: why would I come back here, to this place falling apart at the seams, the president taking his fifth wife, infrastructure collapsing under gross negligence and incompetence, corruption so rife that its become the norm. Why would I come back to the next African disaster?

Over and over again I said, “I just missed it. I missed my home, my country.” Every day, like an officer in the field I was out there, meeting, researching, running workshops, promoting, talking, talking, talking. Stuck in traffic, dodging potholes, feeding on Talk Radio 702, the most astute current affairs station available. 

Plugged in to the pounding, relentless energy of Jozi, gold mining, acid mine draingage, gansters’ paradise.  I loved the debate, the engagement in a new democracy, the ferocity of civil society in trying to hold leaders accountable, or people trying to hold onto what they've got. I love the connecting, the slow conversations, incredible art, ambition, humour, playfulness. I was drained by the absence of beauty in the urban landscape and the endless grey traffic jams.

I got The Enterprise Powerhouse to a respectable place, partnering with a social enterprise in Ivory Park and a high end corporate training facility in Woodmead, so secured a venue, some investment and community support. We pitched the idea to a multinational, but haven’t heard back from them. My feeling is they won’t invest, that the program is, perhaps, too bulky.

I came to Australia at the end of March as I had some contract work booked, and discovered I was completely burned out and in a career crisis. I felt incompetent, lacking skills and weary of humanity. I didn’t want to hear another person’s outpouring of complaint, grief or despair. Ironically, another project I’d been working addressed vicarious trauma and compassion fatigue. Whatever I put into the world is what I need, it seems.

Australia opened its big, wide dusty arms and took me in. First my magnificent women friends in Melbourne, and then my colleagues. We were educated in non-violent communication in our annual team training weekend, and it was there that I shared my distress about my career, and my fear about letting go of it. What emerged was that I long for some ease; a break from the hard work and bullish commitment that has me setting high expectations and loyally expending my energy in moving towards them. A life of ease. What a thought. What a very odd concept.

I started dreaming of a log cabin in Canada, in the Kootenays in BC, remote as you can get, with a dog and a fireplace. The hunger for big wide open spaces kicked in, huge nature with weather and beauty as it should be. Fortunately, I had some free time in the Byron Shire, on the north coast of New South Wales. So I went to the beach. A lot. I walked every day on Brunswick Beach, a pristine, long beach with bush to one side where I know snakes live, and ocean stretching east. In the sun, in the rain I walked into a squall and felt myself embraced by the wildness of nature, so grateful for it. Sea eagles glided above me, circling, sometimes in pairs, always a sign.

I’ve been back and forward to the shire a few times to teach the workshops and take time in nature. Last time a friend and I took a long drive to the Border Ranges National Park to pay our respects to some 2000 year old Arctic Beech Trees.  My time there is suffused with nature, and a different set of friends who all have rich spiritual lives, expressed many ways including music, massage, shamanic work, belly-dancing, food, gardens and luscious homes, creating beauty.

A couple of times I’ve had some good loving with male friends, and now, I am ready to deeply connect with my man. I won’t be having any more causal liaisons – it leaves me quite disappointed, and often feeling somewhat used, as the encounters are about intimacy and not creating relationship. I’m grateful to these men for helping me get to this place, finally, where I really value my love and intimate offering, and want to engage only with someone who is available, respectful and caring. Hmmmm...

 

Brunswick Beach

Border Ranges National Park

Majestic Arctic Beech Trees

3rd April 2011 

I make the bed my lover and I slept in last night, pull the crimson blanket high over the pillows, no visual evidence of our intertwining. I look for his smell on the pillow, but it’s the smell of the house, the smell of this damp forest. I smooth the covers, he will be here again in an hour and a half, and I have yet to bathe, yet to wash him from my last night skin, this morning still breathing him, still resisting him, curious, defeated, detached, open. A river running over boulders of different forms, so it was with him, just being, now, now, now.

I bring the crystal wineglasses down, down the staircase from the loft, bring down the water glasses the last night’s clothes. Bringing it all down, I eat, I tidy the room making space for the new day, and I feel deeply relaxed, watching the inclination to do things fly by, like the squawking crow outside.

Only to tell you of this, this encounter, which left my heart strangely neutral, table flat and trembling, the terrain unknown, the signposts I had erected to defend me now rusty, forlorn and speaking of another time, another place .

He told me how much he enjoys being single, and I waited for my heart to sink, but it didn’t. He told me the extent of his unavailability and his unwillingness to commit, and I was reminded at the clarity of my choices. To travel, to be free, to create, to do work that seemed important at the time, to follow my heart and soul’s voice. And how this style of life is a house for one, what kind of person it would take to move into it. And I wonder at this thought that surfaces in jest and in gravity, that I am looking for the man that will pin me down, anchor me, and then I will stop.

Between that, and looking at some kind of career change, I am up against myself, soothing pictures of Canada coming to mind, where I work in a remote small town coffee shop, maybe Tofino, somewhere wild and massive, where I live a life on the land and with the land. How lovely to dream of this, and I know the reality that something may bite at my heels, demanding to be bigger, to be done.

So I observe this tender heart of mine, the layers grown over and how my body declares stubborn resistance to being penetrated, when its enough, when its enough of penetration and a limited heart connection.

I’ll speak with him about this at 12.30, when he arrives. I’ll speak to him and see if I can make my way past the projected masculine who only wants to fuck and have a taste of me … aaahhh … that’s it, that’s set my heart in motion, that’s where the fear is. How to do love like this where there is no net to catch me, except me.

Soft Serve Melbourne

20th March, 2011

Melbourne was like a delicious soft serve ice cream cone today. My friend A woke me up from a cavernous jetlag induced sleep at 10.30am. “Its going to be HOT,” she said, and when an Australian says that, you know it will be very hot. After making my way through the morning rituals of shower, coffee, and the intermittent one of trying and failing to get online, I walked through the suburb of Preston, down Bell Street and its hissing six lanes of traffic, past the dusty unkempt cemetery to the tram stop. The aircon breezed around the insides of the #1 to South Melbourne, genteel, a lovely passage through the city, busy and bustling on this bright blue Sunday.

A picked me up on Domain Road, my old neighborhood on the southern border of the Botanic Gardens. On days like these the Moreton Bay fig trees smell so sweet, and there are often avenues of them in Australian parks. One of my favourite fragrances in the world, those figs, with their creeping limbs and giant shade patches.

At Black Rock beach we walked through the small harbour, with winches and utes and people hauling bits of boat around. The fish and chip shop has plastic tables and chairs outside, and ice creams for sale. It was like being in one of those colour photos where you can feel the joy of a summer’s day and know the flavour of that perfect light, the girl in the floral bikini’s tanned skin and golden hair like an Aussie flag.

We made our way through the familes to a quieter spot and immediately got into the clear water. The small bay of our beach is framed by mustard coloured sandstone cliffs behind us, the pier and harbor to our right and quite close to shore a wreck entices one to exploration.  The water was cool and perfect, and the day allowed us to ease in, lean back, and my jetlag ceased to be an issue.

A’s boyfriend T is an architect who recently won some awards and a commission for a large job in China, so we had some interesting conversation about how that all works.

A dropped me at the tram stop afterwards; the pavements of Carlton were packed …loud and lazy, great food and gelato being served. On the tram I watched the array of people board and alight – two Somali girls in loose head coverings, narrow skirts, one with spike heeled boots, the other with a leopard print skirt, a bit risqué for Islam, I’m sure. A couple speaking Arabic, some Phillipino friends, an exquisite Japanese girl opposite me with a cream chiffon dress and snake skin wedges, such a pronounced look of innocence on her face I thought it contrived for a moment. Many different accents and languages in and out of the carriages, many people silent plugged into their iPhones or Blackberries.

It was dark by the time I got off at the end of the line, and I walked home, to K’s flat, feeling safe and observing how easy it is to switch between two world in 24 hours, how I never ever walk at night in Jo’burg and how I love the night air, carrying its jasmin scent, in this soft, gentle city.

Reaction: Asshole

9^th March 2011

How to be a White Asshole.

Yesterday I was getting petrol at the Engen garage in Gardens, Table Mountain looming high above us. An emergency service vehicle had parked at the bowser next to me, the trailer attached jutting out into the exit lane.

It was a gorgeous day, bright blue sky and whisps of cloud, an afternoon waiting to happen.

A white woman with black shiny hair and large dark glasses drove her commanding four wheel drive away from her bowser, wanting to get out of the petrol station. Of course she couldn’t, as the emergency service trailer was blocking her way, and, just to amp things up, the driver had gone to buy whatever he wanted to buy in the shop.

She didn’t take long to go from zero to 100, really, it only took a sentence.

“Can you move your car please?” she asked the passenger of the vehicle, also an emergency services guy.

“I can’t, I’m not the driver,” he replied.

“Well, can you get him to move it?”

“He’s not here.”

The tall petrol attendant was fluffing around trying to help but not knowing what to do and so she went for him.

“This is ridiculous, I’m picking up children at school, move that vehicle!” she yelled, now looking at me for sympathy.

The petrol attendant now turned on me and started giving me orders to move, and once I did a four point turn and reversed she could get out, and drove past giving me a look of pained gratitude, as if I’d done her a favour so she could go and pick up her kids. Actually, I didn’t. I didn’t give a shit about her problem as she was being so vile, so rude; I moved as I wanted to leave too.

By the end I felt righteously indignant, and would love to have yelled after her, “you’re one of the reasons white people are so disliked!” Ring a bell? I’ve heard that before ….(in a previous post, I won't assume you're a loyal reader;)

I left thinking what assholes people can be.

Today, it was my turn. I have hit my limit of being a walking cash machine, a soft touch and someone to try and sell shit to or simply demand money from. So when I parked the car at Camps Bay beach, in full view of the cafes so I am pretty much 100% certain it will not get broken into, and therefore I do not need a car guard, and a car guard appears in my face and demands to know how long I am going to be, my irritation rises.

To put things in context, I had just picked my mother up from the airport so my irritation levels were in the red zone anyway. Bad timing on the part of the car guard.

And the jewelery saleswoman, the guy flogging a carved wooden table, the sunglass vendor, the Malawian artists toting lurid canvasses , the beadwork guy, the chicken wire art guy, the lady asking for money for her church, the young guy just asking for money. All I wanted to do was sit on the beach and watch the sea and drink a glass of wine. Not be singled out because I’m white – (is this what was happening? The black people next to me didn’t get approached by any of these vendors). Not to be guilt tripped, not to be cajoled or pushed to make a sympathy purchase.

Is this one of the many legacies we will have to live with, where we are seen as moneyed walking ATM’s that dispense simply because we are white? Which on one hand is fair enough as the divide is so searingly obvious in this blindingly polarised country, with its fake Tuscan security villages and squillion dollar beach apartments.

No. I have had enough. I don't have an apartment in a security village, or a fabulous beach-house. I work hard, and invest my earnings in social projects. I have bought enough shit that I don’t need to fill a cupboard. A pink tartan cap, fake Burberry; a really ugly Springboks cap, a ragdoll, beaded figures. I am done. No more thoughtless purchases. AND I will also not be using phrases like “not today, sorry I don’t have change.” No. I am feeling ruthless. Honest. The Malawian guy’s paintings were hideous. But they would be magnificent on a t-shirt, and I would consider buying one of those. But don’t give me that look and tell me how bad business is. I know how fucking bad business is. Mine's not looking too good either. Don’t sell from a guilt trip. Because when that person sees you again, you will get iced.

Like the bloke who sold me the fucking pink check cap in Irene. I saw him in an entirely different location in Woodmead, and this time, he told me I looked like Angelina Jolie – last time it was J-Lo. But he did his same routine of putting an ugly hat on my dashboard and telling me it was my lucky day, and that he was giving it to me free. I practically threw it back at him when he put on his miserable face to tell me that he hasn’t sold a single hat and in addition, that its his birthday. He was a bit taken aback to be so bluntly brushed off, but he doesn’t realise that I am OVER it.

Neither does the fat teenager who pushed my 80 year old mother out of the way to get into the lift in our apartment block in Cape Town. Little shit. I started lecturing him on manners, and then realised I was a woman in a lift with four men and the fat kid and perhaps I should pick my battle space a little better. Or perhaps I’m just a coward, who doesn’t know spontaneously what to do in these situations.

Race, colour, culture, race. Its incredibly hard to negotiate the variables here, and even harder with ye olde maman attached, sniping at every opportunity.

So to end, I think these are all ideal circumstances should you ever aspire to become a White Asshole or retain your White Asshole status. Responses include rolling up your window without making eye contact on encountering a beggar, being rude or abrasive. There are situations where I find myself so triggered that it is nigh impossible to be nice, like when I'm being relentlessly badgered by a drunk Cape Town car guard. I get it that this is the price we pay for the past, this continuous reminder of need, deprivation, a debt that will always be there, in some peoples' psyches. 

The only decent middle ground I know of and aspire to is to be honest and clear. I don't want to be a white asshole. I need help here, Pema Chodron, someone .... someone who knows about compassion in action and transcendence, please!!  It doesn't serve any of us to be ingratiating, pushy or bullying. Oh to dissolve the triangle of victim, perpetrator, rescuer.