the best weekend of 2009

get on plane. get off plane. eat. drink. long street party. bombay bicycle club. eat. drink. laugh. the stars. the sunshine. hout bay. kalk bay. the vineyard. eat. drink. laugh. smile. dance. dance. dance. camps bay. smile. cry. sunshine. starlight. sunset. shopping. eat. drink. laugh. music. walk through the winelands during the day. dance. dance. dance. the killers. walk through the winelands in darkness. smile. laugh. twirl around. eat. drink. laugh. good friends. tight hugs. eat. drink. My divine friends who come to see me and toast the sunset with me. my suntan is peeling. night swimming becomes night walking. it deserves a quiet night.

my face is in a permanent grin.

Dear Cath and Parri

Thank you. Thank you for opening your home. Thank you for opening your hearts. Thank you for making me dance and dance and laugh. Thank you for the stars. The sunlight. The amazing food. The boundless understanding.

The neverending twirl around the world. The friendship. The hand squeezes. The sharing. The reminding me of who I am.

The stars and the sunlight.

Thank you for “the best weekend of 2009″.

My heart in gratitude. Thank you.

thank you

have good friends.

just have good friends who will drop everything and run.

just have good friends who will check on you.

just have good friends who will phone you back and check on you.

just have good friends who will remind you that you do not deserve this.

just have good friends who will text you and say “do you need a hug? im already outside”

just have good friends who will send you youtube videos about squirrels because they read you and think “shit, i wish i could help you over the wall”

just have good friends who don’t question, don’t have the insanity to want to fix it, who just listen and who do not judge.

just have good friends.

friday

friday.

cheese and crackers and a silent house.

deadlines conquered and spoken words done.

hardest decisions ever made. concluded.

deals struck, feet hurt.

running against the clock’s awkward march towards forever.

and i sit.

i look at my friends upon my screen, my family in their frame.

my foot aimlessly kicks a soccer ball left under my desk by my daughter.

my phone buzzes with another text from someone special.

my kettle boils itself again and my iTunes flips over to my favourite song.

i think of my mum on the phone this afternoon smiling so widely and calling me by my family nickname.

my mind wanders back to a time in my life when i didn’t know who i was and i left that up to other people decide.

they told me they knew best for me, after all.

i grin and know how very wrong they were. how very wrong they still are.

the best for me? the best for Cam?

is this life. this divine, sad and you-have-to-lose-to-win-somewhere, life.

i’m thankful for the people who believe in me when i cannot believe in myself.

i’m thankful for the warmest hugs and the brightest smiles.

i’m grateful for the criticisms, given in respect.

and i’m thankful for the courage to continue.

i am at peace with the past.

i love the way the future dances for me.

i love the way it asks me how i’d like to join in.

my divine friends.  they have a hard time being objective. because of their love for me. but heaven help anyone who steps in my path, because they’ll knock them to the floor faster than a broom kicked over.

my beautiful daughter. her effervescent joy for life. her all-encompassing love for the flowers. the joy in her face when she sees me. our morning hide and seek game.

my you’re-all-fucking-mad-but-i-love-you family. with their joking jibes and concentrated concern.

my beaming nieces. Aunty Caff, they call me. their little kisses on my cheek.

and when you said…

when you said, all those years ago…

“you’ll never make anything of the life you’ve been given because you won’t give your life you”…

you were right, you know.

so i did.

how glaringly right you were. i miss you my friend. you and your fits of rage at me, and the laughing. the shifting of feet.

today is 12 years since you left us.

i am forever thankful for your presence in my life at that formative time.

i am forever thankful that i have continued to sing so very badly, at the top of my voice, even when it hurts other people’s ears.

how you would laugh now. how you would look at the slipstream and say “i’d say i told you so, but, you know i don’t say that to you”.

how you would berate me for so many tattoos yet, still come with me for the next one.

how you would have phoned me up, demanded coffee and left your gigantic shoes on the floor whilst we went and played our very own “crapcricket” and used it as an excuse to rile each other up.

how we would have cried for each other’s pain.

how you would have said “i’m sorry that people fail you. you don’t fail them”

how you would tell me to slow down and then shock me into speeding up.

how we would have said “FTW!” and not meant For The Win.

you’d ask after my mother and demand we go and see her and check on the cats.

i’d make you promise not to dominate the conversation.

and you’d listen to her speak.

how you would swing Cameron around and ask her if you could come to her year-end concert to watch her sing.

how our children..even though yours are older than Cameron..would play and we would laugh at how mine is probably the best disciplined.

and i would smile.

i would smile because you would be in my home again and there would be a grin wider than the sky at my door.

you are missed my friend. You are never forgotten.

In every moment.

In dark nights, and bright celebrations.

You are never forgotten

I am forever thankful for every day.

JM – gone  12 years. always with me.

getting my ass kicked in a good way

in one week

in just one week

alot has happened.

 

i’ve been on the radio, been forced to talk about me for a change.

been forced to think about me for a change.

 

through a lot of SKOOLING and late night phonecalls

i’ve had a lot of essential perspective on my life, career, heart, self, work, love…

 

by friends.

 

but.

 

BUT. There’s one person I want to mention in particular after this week.

 

It’s someone unexpected.

It’s someone i am proud to work with, proud to call my friend and to whom i owe a lot of gratitude.

 

Thank you Mr Mills. For listening, supporting, relating and late night phonecalls.

And, the fish advice

 

 

 

 

Dear Tertia

Dear Tertia

Thank you for this post.

Thank you for making me feel okay about not being good enough.

Thank you for making me feel okay about worrying about dummies.

Thank you for making me feel okay that it’s better that there are no tears for mama and child.

Thank you for your courage to share your life with the world.

It is you I thank every day, mama Tannie T.

Thank you for inspiring me to keep writing.

Thank you for reminding me that the decisions Cam and I make for our lives are ours, and not to be influenced by anyone else, no matter who they are, or what they say.

I am mama, and I know the best way for my daughter and I.

Thank you for making me feel brave enough to admit that yeah…

Nappies were gone by 2; bottles were gone during 3, dummies are going. but they’re not gone yet entirely.

(on that note, Cam has told me that she’ll give them up when I give up smoking. eek. she’s  a smart one, that one).

And, swimming lessons resume again next year. But that’s not my fault or Cameron’s.The important thing is that she is brave enough to begin again.

Thank you for writing that post.

Of every single one of yours that I have read (and yes, when I found you, I read every archive and every post so I can proudly say I have read every single one)… this one…this one had me entirely.

Thank you.

From one rocking mama to another, thank you for being you.

smile

an artist at work

thank you for the photo.

stuffs

thank you for making me smile.

i needed it more than you know.

pieces of pictures i’ve tied together.

i thank you for them.

 

 

thank you

Miss Gates

 

For this

/random. venus as a boy.

/random.

it’s been a long, long time since i heard this on the radio.

it’s been a long, long time since  hated that video when i saw it.

it’s been a long, long time since i originally heard that song and thought it apt in relation to someone.

it’s been a long, long time that i’ve known them and still do.

it’s been a long, long time that we’ve been calling each other at 2am, crying about our lives, or laughing at our mutual calamities.

it’s been a long, long time since i got over whatever it was that i thought was insensitive and moved on and thought not of that ever again.

it’s been a long, long time since that water went under the bridge.

it’s been a long, long time since i had a 19 page letter written for me from an overseas trip where you’d found my twin.

it’s been a long, long time since we started writing faxes to each other. fuck, remember those? waha.

it’s been a long, long time since we would go dancing and prancing and light incense and talk for hours about the world we had yet to know.

it’s been a long, long time. and in between, we’ve fought, we’ve rallied for each other, we’ve stuck together, and unstuck badly-glued parts of our lives, for each other.

it’s been a million years worth of phonecalls.  it’s been a million haircolours and bad clothes and sunrise breakfasts. it’s been a lifetime of letters and purple-tongue fizz pops. it’s been a magical ride of exploring and inquisiting and not taking no for an answer. Of prodding each other and protecting each other when someone else attacks.

And how I laugh. How I laugh now. If I had known at 15, that a 29 I would be writing this…I’d probably have laughed more at 15.

I’ll never forget your face the night i was walked through to the bar. You looked like you’d just found  Mecca/Brad Pitt naked in your bathroom/the winning lottery numbers for every single lottery for eternity/like someone had just called you a nasty name and then told you they were kidding.

I’ll never forget your face as I sat there, holding hands as we were in a row at your mother’s funeral.

I’ll never forget your face as you shouted inbetween the chaos one awful New Year’s Eve. You were the first knight in shining armour to stand up for my daughter, way before she was even ready to greet the world.

I’ll never forget your face as you ran into the hospital when I was so sick. And you held my hand and said “don’t ever do that again. you are not allowed to die. it goes against our world domination schedule”.

I’ll never forget your face the day you told me, gigantic pillows between us, like always, that what I heard was right. And no, that it wasn’t my fault.

I’ll never forget the fact that you were my very first love.

I’ll never thank you enough for it.

Thank you…bless you in your travels, your conquests and your queries.

For us. Bjork. Because, in the back of some club we can’t go to anymore, we would dance and laugh and pretend to be the people we would one day become. Because we are. And darling, that’s fabulous.

this.

this is my song for today.

this version particularly.

it’s been a HELL of day.

Work insanity. Cam sick.

I think headless chickens have a better chance of walking straight with a blindfold on, than I did today.

And at midnight, when I am talking to a good friend.

After being loved and supported through the insanity of the day by good friends…

I am left listening to this.

I want you to listen to this too.

Because now…

Now I am okay.

Thank you.

So much.

 

incomplete – a.n.m.

One day I’ll find relief
I’ll be arrived
And I’ll be friend to my friends who know how to be friends
One day I’ll be at peace
I’ll be enlightened and I’ll be married with children and maybe adopt
One day I will be healed
I will gather my wounds forge the end of tragic comedy

I have been running so sweaty my whole life
Urgent for a finish line
And I have been missing the rapture this whole time of being forever incomplete

One day my mind will retreat
And I’ll know God
And I’ll be constantly one with her night dusk and day
One day I’ll be secure
Like the women I see on their thirtieth anniversaries

I have been running so sweaty my whole life
Urgent for a finish line
And I have been missing the rapture this whole time of being forever incomplete

Ever unfolding
Ever expanding
Ever adventurous
And torturous
And never done

One day I will speak freely
I’ll be less afraid
And measured outside of my poems and lyrics and art
One day I will be faith-filled
I’ll be trusting and spacious authentic and grounded and home

I have been running so sweaty my whole life
Urgent for a finish line
And I have been missing the rapture this whole time of being forever incomplete