something special in hand

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My mother has been talking about writing her biography for a LONG time. I was a little weary of the idea when she first mentioned it five years ago. Mum is unceremonious, audacious and straight up crazy at the best of times. Her biography seemed to me, at the time, like the fastest way to be exposed to enough overshare to necessitate intense psychological treatment and ongoing mental health care.

But that was five years ago. 

Only a month ago I suggested to mum that we work on her biography together. I figured that I'd probably notch up enough reasons to need the afore mentioned treatment anyway - may as well get on with it. Also, I'd been thinking a lot about mum's childhood and all the stories that I'd always loved - truthfully, I couldn't think of anything I'd rather to work on!

Mum grew up in South Africa during Apartheid. The historical, social and political context of her stories alone are facinating. Add to that a bevy of crazy relatives, four displaced siblings, poverty, daily injustices and the challenges of being a "Coloured" but looking like a "White". Oh and also that fact that mother dear has a habit of talking herself into and out of the most bizarre and hilarious situations.

So we met at the library the following Saturday morning to plan the basic framework and chapter breakdown. And well, we laughed so hard that even the high school students attempting to study around us gave us dirty looks. At our next meeting (in a coffee shop) we began writing a chapter from her early childhood, living in an orphanage with her sister. Again we laughed a lot, but then there were these moments where we found ourselves overwhelmed by the sadness of those experiences and suddenly tears would spring up out of no where.

I started this journey with mum because I wanted to help her get these incredible stories out. I also thought it would be great to have another project to get my mind off my WIP novel, when it gave me grief. But in less than a month this exercise has come to mean so much more to me. To hear my mother talk about herself as a little girl, her feelings at climactic points of her life or in South Africa's history. To see the links forming between all the stories I grew up hearing. To talk about my father (who was murdered a long time ago). To talk about the history of my country and my family. It's a really beautiful thing and I feel incredibly lucky to be sharing it all with this wild, determined woman.

I'll keep you updated with our progress!

Do you have a writing project that means a lot to you? Have you written a biography? Do you think you'll ever give it a try?

What, a disappointment?!

"the octopus in the room"

I wrote a comment on someone else's blog a few weeks ago, which I've really wanted to share here. I've held off until now, because it could be seen as offensive to certain members of my extended family. But this is it, these are my experiences, and I've lived to tell the tale and I've risen to make meaning out of these seemingly random events that I've encountered, and so and so and so... I'm hoping these people either don't go online enough to bother with this blog and/or appreciate the beauty that I have found in the midst of ugliness.

Sarah Wilson (Australian journalist) recently posted about lowering expectations as a way of being pleasantly surprised by life. I get what she's saying, don't set yourself up for a fall by expecting to much of yourself and others. But part of me feels like this is pretty defeatist. "If I train myself not to expect much, I won't be disappointed by the nothing that I get and therefore I'll be happy." It sounds ok, but all you're doing is trying to protect yourself from disappointment, as though you can trick yourself into not being disappointed, as though disappointment is something you can foresee and avoid.

I think the let downs are one of life's most useful things. The way a person responds to disappointment can either build or decay their character (and sense of humour!). I think that we should have the highest expectations of ourselves and others, as this is what propels us forward. 

If happiness is the goal, I think disappointments are a great opportunity to learn that real joy is NOT something that comes from the outside in. I expect a lot from the people around me, but I don't hold anyone responsible for my happiness.

A lesson: My 21st Birthday was spent in South Africa with my huge extended family. The gifts were beyond tragic: 2kg candles in the shape of faces, a holographic dolphin cuff-watch, and a furry leopard skin and diamante purse. But what topped this bizarre 12 year old themed list was the commemorative plate with a photo of my face stretched, so that I resembled a beardless swami, across the front from my most beloved uncle. The horrific plate was immediately passed around the large circle of Aunties who sporadically exclaimed “oh sooooo beautiful”, “sooooo thoughtful”. All of this could have sent me over the edge of self-pity and binge eating, but instead I kept a plate-stretched smile on my face and thanked every one earnestly for my gifts. Though I was not thankful for the trauma, I was genuinely thankful for the thought, the gesture, the kindness in their eyes, the love that I felt radiating from them toward me. Yes, I was very thankful!

I didn't need the Tiffany's bracelet or the subscription to Vogue Living or the Eames inspired wall hooks that's been sitting on my wish list for the last two years! I got a stack of crappy presents and something far more enduring and inexplicably valuable. (Don't you hate it when a writer writes "inexplicably", it's like "Come on, you're the wordsmith, give us an explication. That's just lazy." Well it's not lazy, it was beautiful beyond words, so why don't you back off cause you're ruining this touching moment.)

To be honest, that awful plate has given me more joy than any other gift I have ever received. I still have it, hidden in some dark place. One day soon, I’m going to dust it off, serve a delicious dinner for Mat on it and share the joy.

Out of reach

My father passed away when I was 13 years old. I closed the chapters of sadness and anger a long time ago, but the other night I had a dream about him, which woke me up and made me think.

In my dream we'd planned to catch up before he went to court to hear the verdict of a trial against him. He was told to wear a very respectable looking suit, but all he had were an old pair of suit pants which he cut into long shorts and a non-matching tweed suit jacket. He looked like a crazed hobo.

But he was gentle and when he talked all I could think was how much I'd missed his voice, how much I'd forgotten what it sounded like. I had only meant to stay with him for an hour, but I felt that I controlled time, so I made one hour more like two or three.

I also felt like the "verdict" to come was in my control, but I didn't know which way I would let it go. Innocent and free to see each other whenever we wanted or guilty and locked away for 22 years. I woke up before I had decided.

Once fully awake, I felt a dull ache in my chest. When we both lived and resided in the same country, he was never really close to me for long enough - I only visited him every second weekend as a kid. Now, even if he were still alive, he would live 1000s of km away from me. Even in my dreams he is just a little out of reach. It's like that relationship was never meant to be.

It made me think. There are some people who, no matter how much you love them, you can't bridge the gap. Maybe we're not supposed to. Instead of living in the past, maybe we should look around for the people that are within reach and love and cherish and be thankful for them.

Ghost boy.

When I was 9, there was a very strange boy in my class. He was a trouble maker He was aggressive scruffy and a loner. He was also very fairskinned with white-blonde, wirey hair, which was the strangest thing of all in a predominantly "Coloured" school in South Africa, 1994.

At some point I realised that this strange person had a very strange attachment to me. It may have been because I seemed to be the only person in our school who was not afraid of him. It's likely that I yelled at him about something or the other. The truth is, I was afraid of him, of his unpredictability; I just yelled alot as 9 year old.

So one day while walking home from school, a bolt of fear hit me when I turned to see him following me. I gave him "the evils" and then kept walking a little faster, telling myself that in ten minutes I'd be home and my mother would shoo him away like a stray dog. He didn't try to catch up, he didn't say anything. These things that should have reassured me, only made the air between us more tense.

Finally, I was home. As I opened the door, I turned once more to see him standing at the bottom of my driveway, watching me. I pretended to look through him and rather confidently walked into the protection of my home.

My mother was in the kitchen making burger patties for dinner. I ran to her and began ranting about him. About how much I hated him.

She seemed to ignore everything I said, until I mentioned that he'd followed me all the way home. She wiped her hands and walked to the front door. I knew it! She was going to let him have it. I began looking around the kitchen for the broom, she would need that to chase him. I loved my mum, she really wasn't scared of anyone, not even creepy ghost-boys.

She opened the door wide enough for me to see that he was now sitting on the kerb of the pavement at the front of our house, looking out at the houses across the road.

Then she did the most absurd thing. Something I never expected, never imagined! She called out to him and invited him in.

I remember feeling panic, like a million tiny ants crawling up and down my arms and legs. Did she want to die today? Seeing him walk into my living room was surreal, like a nightmare that you keep willing yourself to wake up from.

She made both of us sit in the kitchen with her as she cooked a few of the beef patties she had made. I tried not to look at him, but I knew he was sitting very still. Very quietly he answered mum's gentle questions. I don't remember anything she said, I don't even remember the sound of his voice. I do remember my confusion and anger at this intrusion, at my mother's stupidity.

She took us to the table and plated up a fat, juicy burger each; with herb flavoured beef, tomoto, beetroot, lettuce and her spicy secret sauce. I ate about 1/2 of mine, sneaking looks across the table as he gobbled his up. He did not look up from his plate once. Despite how quickly he ate, he did not spill a drop of sauce, or one bit of  lettuce on his plate or on his thin, holey uniform. Mum brought out another burger and he gobbled that one too.

When he finished, he looked up, his eyes glazed with satisfation. He stood up from the table, blurted a soft "Thank you" in mum's direction and then let himself out.

I sat there, starring at the front door and then at my half eaten burger.

I always think of that. About how I saw that kid everyday, but never noticed what mum did in an instant. How she had ignored my reaction to him. How the external things about him that had repulsed me, were the very same things that made her extend kindness.

He never followed me home again

I blame my mother.

Today I found the number eight in my bag. As in a number that you stick on your house so that when people drive to your house for the first time, they see your number and go, oh that's 8 Whatsit Road, that must be zz's house. No I don't live at number 8 so it's not mine. I found in on the ground when I was exploring an inner city suburb with my husband.

This leads me to the following question: Do I have problems? Is it normal to see things on the ground, and think, oh better pick that up and take it with me. I cannot begin to articulate the justification process behind that.

Another time, I was walking to the train station to go to school and I encountered about 100 digimon trading cards spralled across my path. What do you think I did? I picked every single one up and put them in my bag. I was 17, I did not watch digimon. Is this a sickness?

Oh and while I'm confessing, if you're wondering where all you're pens are, chances are I took them, one at a time. I can't help myself. If there's a big bunch of pens, they don't seem to bother me. But if there's just one pen, flying solo on an empty table/bench/etc, I pick it up surreptitiously and quietly slip it into my bag/pocket/hair.