There's this thing that I do...it's called LIVING!

So true...the time thing. It's been more than six months since my last post, and my journey has twisted and turned in the most fascinating and enjoyable ways.

At first it meant going off-grid, into the mountains at Hogsback, and spending time reconnecting with nature. The harsh reality of seeing indigenous forests being 'invaded' by commercial tree plantations, was a most unwelcome intrusion though.

Wandering through the forests on the mountains at Hogsback, I learnt to recognise where young saplings were being removed so that locals could stay alive by carving walking sticks, other bric-a-brac and for making fires for cooking...the process means the forest does not have a chance to mature and the old trees are dying, with no young ones to replace them as they fall...our indigenous forests are in trouble!

I also saw a pack of hunting dogs, illegal but not mangy looking, and wondered at the life the dog handlers lead...similar practices are prevalent at home in the Transkei and I suppose, everywhere else in the rural parts of our country.

The difference in altitude meant the plant species were not at all like the ones at home, although some of the herbs and little wildflowers, found on the mountains in Port St Johns, also have a home on the Hogs.

The cottage where I stayed and cooked for a friend is set in a magnificent garden, and the property has a variety of fruit trees that are literally torn apart in the process of being ransacked by both baboons and Samanga monkeys, as they circle the area in search for food.

An online search and picking of people's brains, managed to get me a few different recipes for what to do with plums, and plum chutney, jams and jelly was all the rage while the season lasted. The fruit spoils rather quickly though, and needs a lot of sugar to satisfy my sweet tooth, but I even managed to gift some friends and family with a bottle or two.

At times, with tiny mushroom 'forests' sprouting at the edge of the verandah, or river frogs inhabiting the pond we completed, it felt as if I was living in the land of the faeries...with insects abounding, cicadas screeching their lovesongs and Loeries swooping in for a closer look at my leopard-crawling antics as I tried to capture wild bees burrowing in the lawn.

 

And just when the food gardens started to flourish and my hands almost got used to reconnecting with mother earth...a twist in the road appeared.

The retreat to Hogsback had to be cut short when I was invited to further my studies and do my Master's degree...an ongoing process, in which I will hopefully manage to find a way for thousands of Masters and Doctoral theses to be made more available to the public, so that dedicated student research can serve a better purpose than just gathering dust in a library.

Fact of the matter is though, that not all basic needs can be fulfilled by 'growing your own' and the commute between Hogsback, home in the Kei and Durban, in pursuit of 'making a living', certainly made for some interesting encounters and realities. Loads of new friends resulted and if you've ever wondered what to do with a little money and time on your hands...pick a spot somewhere in our beautiful country and then take a taxi or a bus, or several if the journey requires it, and make the journey! Believe me, on your way there and back, you are bound to meet people from all walks of life, with living experiences that are simply amazing, and when you take the time to listen to their stories, your life will be all the richer for it, and it does not have to cost an arm and a leg.

With still no electricity at home, and having recently been asked to write full-time for a web-portal as columnist, the last leg of my previous journey took me to Gauteng and brought an understanding of how to make better use of who I am and what I know and can do.

What I have gained will take some time writing down, but mostly I have reaffirmed that living is not written in stone, instead it lies in DOing and BEing all that I can, all that I am. It is no longer about finding a job or work...rather it is about making myself available and being open to where I can apply my skills and the work and jobs find me.

The shift in planetary energy is both invigorating and depressing...to say the least...and riding its tidal wave, is allowing me to experience the essence of a little song I made up for my children, so many years ago...

There's this thing that I do
it's called LIVING
There's this thing that I do
it's called LIFE

Just take a breath and see
it's easy as can be

There's this thing that I do
it's called LIFE!

Ode to living

Ode: a lyric poem (?!)


Ok. So, when I say I'm writing an ode to living, someone must sing it. Neat. I don't know much about commercial music but, through years of exposure my perception of what music is, is nicely balanced by a personal preference for either 'white noise' or the sounds of nature.


I therefore grant permission to anyone who finds anything they wish to use, to do so. Change it to suit and belong to its use. Once taken, it's yours, so be responsible with the use of the words you've chosen to represent yourself with to your audience.


Having just recently started my first attempt to pen an ode to living, I am actively listening because it's the bones I am developing, from which the skeleton is evolving and then the big write will happen when I'll put the meat on 'em bones. (Apologies to all non-meat eaters for the analogy, but it works - as does the photo below of the goat in the pothole...checking things out.)

Right now though, in my listening, I am hearing so much that does not add value to our living. The aggression, at times, pulses around me, feeding in and on itself and I feel as if it's my first time out in the sea, with the waves threatening to wash over me, lift me and dump me...


'Fighting' back is an instinctive reaction and at times it takes actual control to still the bubbles before they rise to the surface and pop. Meditation helps me to focus and turn aside this tide of anger that threatens to consume all in its path, and I have to actively disengage from the process, step away and aside, to breathe.


The thing is...living and working in the city, after life in a rural setting, you may fight it...but eventually you have to adapt and take cognisance of the fact that life moves to a decidedly different, seemingly endless 'thrumm' wherever humanity congregates. All the senses are bombarded by a focused myriad of sounds, sights, smells, tastes and textures and the eventual numb-down leaves the spirit vulnerable.


This constant onslaught is not something everyone can deal with. Take time to sift through the debris left inside your mind after subjecting yourself to it's full force for a few hours. Think of how you 'feel/think/act' after a day of actively participating in peak hour traffic in the city centre (driver or passenger; public or private), in order to do some shopping on pay-day or month end (hyper or super store, not corner cafe).


...and...?


don't know about you but me, I'm going back to listening - with filters on this time or I'll bite someone - because as I said, I am in the process of writing an ode to living and I know that all I have to do is keep listening...the good stuff will surface, just wait and see.

Valley Guardians

                           

Home...

Now that I have managed to maintain input on the 'alivenliving' blog, it seemed apt to create a new space, an own space, for the Valley Guardians posts.

Check it out to find out where this is going...http://www.valleyguardians.blogspot.com/

And in the interim, I will continue posting information about the life I live with, at home on the WildCoast of the Eastern Cape, in an area previously known as the Transkei.

The life-forms we live with are multiple, varied and fascinating. This includes cut-roses, brought in from KwaZulu Natal to bloom there where I was assured they would not - about a mile from the sea, buffeted by winds both north and south, east and west - along with spiders, birds, insects, fish, plant life and of course, people.

Educating those who want to know is a part of the process but in the end, simple awareness of the richness and diversity of those we share our living with, has its own rewards.

Enjoy, comment, disagree...whatever floats your boat!

Another Saturday night..

...and I ain't got nobody
I've got some money 'cause I just got paid
Now, how I wish I had someone to talk to
I'm in an awful way...

How many people do you know that are all alone, on a Saturday night...or any night for that matter? And if you know this, what are you doing to make their lives less lonely? I find it a little disturbing that there are so many lonely people who have no-one that cares enough to take time out and visit, chat, be there for each other.

Instead the 'lonelies' gather in pubs or turn on the television or have something more to eat, so that they can keep the loneliness at bay and at least feel as if they are sharing a moment or two in some way, even if it isn't with someone.

Asking these questions makes me wonder whether we have become too self-centred and desensitized to those around us or whether we will excuse ourselves by blaming the crime rate and how 'unsafe' it is 'out there'...or by quickly saying that we don't really know these people, they're just acquaintances?

Well, friendships that last a lifetime can be stronger and more meaningful than family ties and they were all started by making someone's acquaintance. Then, you have to put in the time to build the friendship and over years it becomes meaningful to the point where you no longer have to give it a second thought. You are simply there for each other, instinctively knowing when company is needed to keep loneliness away.

Taking time out for each other has a tremendously positive effect on our collective journey as a species and when we all pull together we absolutely do make a difference. So take a moment and turn an acquaintance into a friend and let the loneliness end.

Reality check

Ok, so it's Saturday 26 May and although the words don't stop coming the jumble they're in means what ends up on paper (the screen) does not necessarily always reflect the true meaning of what I'm trying to say.
Being a mom of three adult 'boys' - yes, they'll always just be my 'boys' - is not a simple thing. Not that being a parent can ever be simple, especially not when you're a single parent.

When they're really little and depend on you for everything and your life feels as if it's chaos personified, at times you can't wait for them to grow up...but it happens so fast...and before you know it you're coping with the loss of not having them so dependent, be relegated to standing on the sidelines as they live their own lives and you're coping instead with the losses they have to endure.

The flipside is that you also share their joys and achievements, holding your breath with every step they take in their own living, cheering silently so they don't feel that you're interfering and nodding quiet consent when they look to you for approval. As much as you'd love to scream and shout their achievements from the rooftops you learn (over time) what they will or won't allow and adjust your reactions according to what your children want, setting your 'usual' reactions aside.

Each of my boys is so totally unique, so absolutely their own person, that there is no way I can generalise my dealings with them... motherhood in triplicate!

So, today is a reality check for me because they're all grown up and out of the house, have been for some time, and I miss them and I need to say so.

A sad story of bravery

"How cruel is fate to take a life so young and rip it from this world, even if that life is given to protect another."

The sun had been baking all day. It was still hot at four in the afternoon but it was the time when new seedlings were checked. It was important because it was day three since the transplanting and some of the lettuce and spinach looked borderline. Today was make or break!

Although he was the youngest in a pack of 13 Jack Russells, Dogmatix firmly believed in his right to do everything first. He took pride in his chosen position and the passion with which he attacked every moment of his life adventure could be quite contagious, hurrying everyone along.

The knowledge that all the chores would be done by early evening when the best time of day started…FOOD…ensured that Dogmatix was insistently first again on that fateful day.

I took a short-cut through a patch of weeds; earmarked for clearing the following day, and had to make a quick sidestep as the ‘pointsman’ in the protection squad charged past, ready to be the first to identify and eliminate any threats.

The snake had managed to stay alive for many years, its almost orange-brown colour, size as thick as my forearm and length of about a metre, attesting to its maturity. The definitive markings and not having moved away at our approach identified it as a Puff Adder!

The strike, swift as an arrow, struck deep, penetrating the fleshy part above the eye-bank. Not quite one year old, the short legged, wire-haired Jack Russell known as ‘Dogmatix’, knew no fear. Shaking off his attacker, he followed through with an attack of his own…and suffered three more strikes to the head before the pack descended.

The riot that followed left behind the tattered and torn body of what had been the proudly muscled Puff Adder, who had not managed to cheat death this time…but neither had Dogmatix.

In living the life of my self-appointed ‘protector’, a role he adopted from the time he opened his eyes at about 10 days old, Dogmatix had managed to ensure his place in Paradise by giving his own life in defending and protecting my own life. The agony I helped ease him through that evening, was denied me by this brave young animal friend and I waited with him, watching helplessly as he lost his fight against the snake poison.

I pay tribute in verse to a friend who deserves it:

You chose me as your playmate
And your friend
You were magnificent and brave
till the end

You supervised the garden work

Watched and learned about hunting

Practised on geckoes and lizards

you even caught a rat and made your first kill

And in between…PLAY of course!

And insisting on being and doing everything first.

Thank you for choosing me

to be

part of your life and

for choosing

to be part of mine.

This post is part of the contest Ten words to a Story(or Poem).. on WriteUpCafe.com

Tied to ties

trials and tribulations
ties and being tied
fact is
understanding
means being
misunderstood

because not being
means you deny
where you come from
your own
parenthood threatened
your childhood
forgotten
irrelevant
what's good?

living your own life
is not a given
with friendship forsaken
for the sake
of being part of
blood ties
tied
for good

be the one and
you're taken for granted
be still
be silent
knowing that
it's no good

Stored for later...

... more tears
less fears
a clear head
a stifled sob
and much writing not done
while time wasted away years
of less tears
and more fears
in a mind muddled by agony
silently screaming.

Hoping
and hoping
and hoping
that the swings between mood changes
would last longer
stay stable
and diminish the violent outbursts
when nothing was right
and everyone out to get even or more.

Living with a manic depressive who self-medicated with dope, alcohol, nicotine and violence can maim you beyond imagining - if you allow it to damage the core of who you are BUT when you realise that at the centre of your being is a well of loving that never runs dry EVER and you draw your strength, hope and inspiration from there ... nothing negative can be sustained and when it stays it is turned and turning becomes part of the love you live.

The best but hardest is finding out that the love is for all, not specific but general and fills so much, the little bits that are kept from you by those who selfishly feel they can hurt you this way, are as drops in an ocean and again ... eventually they accumulate somewhere to overflowing and so are not really kept away but stored for later.

Skin deep Scars

It was never going to be an ordinary day. Never, ever, ever again. It couldn’t even begin to resemble ordinary. Not after what had happened. Impossible!
I now have to constantly harness every ounce of strength, both physical and emotional, so as to not lash out at anyone within arms length – why does it seem as if everyone feels the need to stand so close that you can feel their breath on your neck, in your face? What happened to personal space, the fight or flight zone or just simply not crowding another person.
It’s been five months, 11 days, 22 hours and 13 minutes. The scene that was set and played out then, is now locked in a loop that intrudes, attaching itself to my being, when I least expect it.
With my home situated in a remote rural village without electricity, a weekly trip to town is required. This meant taking the morning taxi and it delivered me in town bright and early to stock up on groceries. I was crossing the street to avoid a group of unruly youths on my way to the pharmacy when out of the corner of my eye I see a man put a cigarette to his lips, the match poised above the striking edge of the box…

…the scratch of a matchstick being lit filters through the layers of the first hour of deep sleep after a relaxing yet exhausting day...

I had taken a local taxi from my home in the village to the guest house turn-off about 20km away, strolled up the winding access road while taking in the unspoilt, natural beauty of the forest around me. Everything was so green, so vivid and butterflies flitted gracefully from flower to flower as the Touracos called and the Ring-necked Turtle Doves cooed. Approaching a bend in the road I was suddenly confronted by one of the guest-house dogs, a Bouvier who, having recognised me charged in for a hug, a love and a bit of lemon grass I had picked for the occasion.
It had been several years since my friend and I had seen each other; my husband had done some renovations at her guest house and when he passed away we lost touch. So we spent the afternoon catching up on news while pottering in the gardens, checking that the seedlings, which had been newly transplanted, were well watered and weeding as we picked salad-ingredients for the evening meal. A quick shower made short business of the garden grime, after which we prepared and cooked our food. Eating, drinking, cleaning up and making nonsensical chatter over coffee felt good and we were both relaxed as we each settled into an armchair, gazed into the night and enjoyed the screech of crickets and cicadas, while plumbing the depths of life and its meaning, finally saying our goodnights an hour before midnight.

…raising my head off the pillows I see a man hunched over the soft yellow pool of match-flame light at the door to the room and as wakefulness washes over me I realise it is not part of a dream. The flame flickers out and for a moment the pitch-blackness of the night engulfs everything. And suddenly he’s there, next to the bed I had moments before been asleep in, he’d switched on the bedside lamp, half-smiling in the startling brightness he tells me to sh-sh-sh before he grabs me and pushes me back down on the bed, and I notice the stained and dirty-looking blade of a knife in his right hand as it glints in the lamp light...

I remember thinking at the time that I had seen him somewhere, had been introduced to him at some point … and he recognised me, I’m sure he did, yet I can still not place him.

…I watch him as he half-shrugs, as if it doesn’t matter or he doesn’t have a choice. I start shaking my head, saying that this is not right, something is very wrong here and I demand: “What are you doing in my room?” It’s as if everything is waterlogged, heavy and slow. I come fully awake and realising this, I see the look in his eyes shift from ‘let me see what I can take’, to ‘kill’, and then several years of self-defence-training kick in…

Growing up with two brothers, one a year younger and the other two years my senior, meant learning how to defend myself against a team-tackle by my siblings while they’d try and hold me down to tickle me till I either cried out or sobbed hysterically (or promised them all my pocket money or sweets, or to do their chores). I had learned early on to pull my knees up to my chest and hold my brothers at bay by kicking, (legs are longer than arms), till I could either be rescued or do some damage and this reflex served me well into my 10^th year, when my mother enrolled me at the local Judo club for self-defence training.
Earning my brown belt took many years of training but once married and with children of my own exercising seemed to be mostly made up of gardening and later, walking the beaches and forests wherever I found them. At 51 I was not really out of shape or unfit, just out of practice.

… I had managed to draw my legs up between us reflexively when my attacker struck and as the knife plunges into my breastbone, then glances off my collarbone, I try to kick and fight him off. He changes his grip on the knife to slash at my throat, his hold on me easing just a fraction in the process, and I manage to snap my legs straight, slamming them into him and sending him sprawling off the bed, onto the floor.
It’s all the opportunity I need and when he scrambles up and lunges at me with the knife, I’m on my knees on the bed, ready for him while my sensei’s voice echoes “fight the man, not the weapon”. The satisfaction of seeing his eyes almost pop in surprise when I grab his knife-hand, immobilise it under my body, grab him by the throat and push him down on the bed…

Trying to regain some normality after the attack and a weeklong recovery with family, I return home to a routine I had previously found both comforting and rewarding. It’s a beautiful, sunny day when the neighbour’s children come over to play while learning handcrafts. The youngest is a year old; she is past cute, learning to speak English while boldly holding on to my skirt as I gather paper, scissors, glue and paints. Her name is Silula (it means ‘easy’ and being the youngest of eight children I’m sure her mother found the birth relatively simple after all the practice she’d gotten through the previous seven births), and the little one insists on climbing me like a tree whenever she can gain a foothold. She’s very agile for her age, skimming up my back as I kneel down to retrieve some sticky tape from the bottom shelf of the book-case. Once attached to my hip, she quickly snuggles into my armpit, hoping to not be noticed and loving the elevated perch from where she can direct her siblings in their crafting endeavours.
The dog comes charging in to see who’s visiting and Silula grabs for my neck, squealing as the dog nips playfully at her feet. Panic surges through me as she wraps her arms tightly around my neck, grabbing at my hair in the process and I watch her eyes widen as I struggle to control the urge to lash out, run, fight…

...he tries to push me away and I exert force, his puzzled expression turns to panic and we are both stunned to realise that I will take his life as easily as he would have taken mine. Not only am I stronger, the element of surprise - having a victim fight back and be not only willing but capable of killing, rather than be killed - gives me an edge over my attacker. And when I address him in his own language, snarling what I intend to do to him, I watch his panic turn to fear...

I am ashamed and terrified – of myself! The sure knowledge that I am no better than this animal has changed everything. The way I look at the world is tainted, the way I look at myself distorted and my privacy and personal space have become treasures to protect and hide from the world, lest someone invade and threaten me again.

…Squirming his way out of my grip he runs into the bathroom, bewildered at not finding a way out he turns for the door as I lunge and fall, legs entangled in bloodied sheets, and watch as he grabs my laptop bag and backpack off the chair, flings open the door and disappears over the balustrade at the edge of the veranda, into the bushes in front of my room. My chest throbs dully and the side of my face and neck are on fire …

Councillors, therapists, family and friends have all, in one way or another, managed to help me fight the fear and it has subsided somewhat but now, now I tread softly instead of boisterously bouncing, now I furtively glance at faces and keep to myself instead of trustingly engaging strangers in conversation, now I sleep light and investigate every sound and movement instead of resting my weary self in readiness for my daily living.
And under everything lies a new self-knowledge, a loathing of what I have become – I am no better than that wanna-be rapist and murderer! When threatened I now know I will kill, in self-defence or to prevent a repeat of what happened during the attack. I WILL NOT BE A VICTIM AGAIN!
Having made the decision to not let the ‘incident’ become more than a life-lesson, to learn, gain something positive from all of this, seems simple enough but it seems I am paying lip-service to my intentions and I find that I withdraw and isolate myself at every and any opportunity. I shut the doors, close the windows so no-one will think I am home, simply sitting around either vacantly staring into space or reading to escape to a different reality. My morning hike through the forest to the beach when I need to get out or find some inspiration seems a lifetime away.
Having made the morning forest walk to the beach on a regular basis over the last few years, it beckons every time I am outside and I eventually give in, dress for walking and tentatively start on the footpath I have grown to love, armed with my Taser, walking stick that resembles a caveman’s club and pepper spray in my back pocket – just in case. The dog, sensing something is not quite right but unsure what to do stands at the gate, watching me enter the forest with a half-wag of her tail and a quizzical look. I had barely gone 50 steps, revelling in the new shoots evident after heavy rain a few weeks ago, the crunch of dry leaves underfoot and the musty smells of the decomposing forest floor, when I suddenly hear something or someone crashing through the bushes towards me and I panic, racing ahead while branches whip at my face and roots try and snag my feet.

…the sound of my attacker fleeing through the bushes, the wet stickiness of my own blood on my hands and the blackness of the night seem surreal. But then, as reality kicks in and my body reels from adrenalin and blood loss, I find the strength to draw breath and scream: “HEEEEELP, SOMEONE HELP ME!” over and over, till the dogs are around my feet and I stumble up the stairs to the parking area where the sensor light has been triggered. It half blinds me and the darkness is mercifully banished and I watch as my friend charges towards me with her handgun, which refuses to go off, held aloft…

We were fortunate in having the police arrive within half an hour. It felt as if we’d been invaded there were so many of them, each assuring me that they would do everything in their power to find the perpetrator. Yet no flashlights were lit or bushes beaten to see if he was hiding somewhere close by waiting for all the commotion to die down, so ‘just sitting down and relaxing’ was not an option. I was convinced he was out there, watching and waiting for an opportunity to finish the job. I could, after all, identify him; his face seared into my memory as if with a branding iron.
I use the word fortunate because the guest house is remotely situated and midnight and later seems the best time to perpetrate crime. As we gathered in the silence after the police departed we all agreed that the response had been unusually speedy as some crime scenes in the area were known to only have been visited by the police only several days after the fact. ‘No vehicles’ or ‘no-one to send out to the scene of the crime’ being common responses. Perhaps because we are women and one is a business owner in an industry that can ill afford this kind of publicity?
The neighbourhood does, however, also have some caring citizens who stay in touch with each other after dark, checking in via cell phone and landline, especially since my friend and I live alone, and when my friend had contacted them quite hysterically, they all flooded the police with calls of the attack, urging them to respond.
Painkillers, coffee, friends milling about wanting to help and watching the sunrise is what I remember in the hours after the attack and returning from being stitched up. And of course the uncontrollable shaking and replay of seemingly random snatches of the terror I had just lived through.
Someone took me to the health centre for medical care with me insisting all the way that I was fine, I just needed to bath and get rid of the bloodied clothes I was still wearing. There was a scramble to remove the iodine a student nurse had started swabbing onto the wounds once the nursing staff found out I was deadly allergic to iodine but the sting of the anti-tetanus jab in my arm seemed irrelevant when compared to the consequences the dirty blade the attacker had wielded could cause if left untreated.
The stab wound to my chest had seemed random, until the policeman who came to the centre to take my statement explained that it was aimed at my heart – a death stroke that, if punched through the breastbone while the victim is lying down, will penetrate the heart.
It was when I was asked to remove my jewellery that I found the reason I was still alive. The knife had, instead of penetrating the breastbone, glanced off my crystal and the second stab had seen the knife become entangled in the chain holding the crystal. Lucky? No, I believe ‘protected’ more aptly describes how I survived.
Three stitches in my chest, five just under my collarbone and another eight from my cheek to just under my jaw were a constant reminder that my reality had been drastically affected.
We managed to track the attacker’s flight path once we had daylight to search by; we even found my son’s passport that I had been keeping for him where it had fallen out of my backpack as the attacker scaled the fence. Footprints led us to bushes across the road and I felt somewhat apprehensive that he had in fact been waiting around while the police were busy ‘attending to the matter’.
An identikit was compiled and distributed, the laptop serial number circulated and I must have spoken to dozens of villagers, all to no avail. A suspect was eventually found but before he could be brought in for questioning he was run over by a car and last I heard he was in intensive care. The man who attacked me may still be out there, somewhere, but life goes on and time heals, even though initially it seems only superficial, that is just the scars and even though the wounds run deeper than just skin-deep, the whole process takes time.
I am better now. Still fearful, scanning faces looking for him and still carrying all sorts of weapons with which to scare off any would be perpetrators but mostly I am wary. Suspicious of strangers, of silence, of noise and crowds, I don’t know if I can ever again be the carefree soul who wandered the forests and beaches alone looking for shapes and textures as only nature can craft them.
But life is short and way too precious to dwell on the negative.
There is a lot of living I would still like to do and even though it is now more difficult and it will take time to regain my freedom, I also know that I can have no more ordinary days. Every moment of every day has to count. Every effort has to be made to make each day extraordinary because when it happens that you walk away from an attack that comes close to extinguishing your life force, you have to be stronger than before. You have to believe it won’t happen again and mostly, you have to believe that the life you have been given is meant for bigger and better than what you have attained and you can only live one extraordinary day at a time, with every ounce of your being.
And so I celebrate my living moment by moment, banishing the thoughts of what may have been ordinary and replacing them with what might be extraordinary.