Thursday, June 18, 2009

Reflection Zone


After three or so months of getting up at 4h15 am to perform in township schools across Gauteng life has conspired to give me a few weeks to recollect myself and have a bit of a break with my folks. They have a lovely house in Deneysville on the Vaal dam which I adore and it is doing me the world of good. My friend Sarah told me that she would help me edit a book if I would take the time to write it, so I have come here to start throwing down the foundations. It’s scary and all grown up to be trying to write a book and so far I’ve only written about twelve pages, but I’m really enjoying it. I get up drink my green tea write my morning pages and then, in between helping my mom lift the odd suitcase or drive her to the shops or hair salon (she’s still recovering from a big operation) I am pretty much indulging in taking a good look at myself, one of my favourite hobbies. Next month I turn thirty and it’s an important benchmark in my life. Numerous psychics, Astrologers and Sangoma’s have told me in the past that my life would come together just before my thirtieth birthday and here I am a few weeks away still waiting for that to happen.
I’ve joined the local gym in Deneysville and for R15 a day I can pump iron with a very sexy 20 year old who is a barman at one of the local bars. I find him there when I go around 4pm and he plays Eminem from his cell phone as he does his bench presses and I try not to look too gay as I do my second set of leg raisers. Most of the equipment looks like stuff you would get from Verimark and I suspect that 20 year old and I may be one of just a handful of members most of which I presume must come in the mornings when 20 year old and I are sleeping. Deneysville is quiet and villagey. The people are down to earth and quite friendly but I’m not here to socialise. My dad wakes early every morning to run his Laundromat on the main road and mom and I keep busy during the day on various projects. Other than recovering she’s currently making an inventory of all the stamps we found in old suitcases that my grandfather collected during his life. Mom does her thing and I do mine and occasionally we meet up for tea (which I keep flowing) or meals which my mother expertly prepares. It’s easy to manifest love-handles in Deneysville.
Since I’ve been here I’ve missed auditions for Grease the next big Pieter Toerien musical planned for next year and for the first time in ages I felt nothing but relief that I wasn’t able to go. I Love musicals but I don’t think I’ll be able to keep doing them and make enough money to sustain a real living. I’ve loved every moment of being a musical theatre queen but I’ve put a fork in myself and begun to realise that I’m done. There are just so many talented young actor/singer/dancers spewing forth from the universities and Colleges and it’s not really ever where I saw myself in the long run.
So, what next? I’m not really sure... I start a gig on the 29th singing opera in Melrose Arch to promote Bingo (you can’t make that shit up) and I am even considering doing the schools again afterwards if it continues to pay me enough to keep writing. Sometimes I lie in bed at night crushed by at least one of our five chubby cats and I fantasize about what I want for my life. I see my own imaginary home with comfy couches and cosy nooks that invite you to drink tea, read a book or write a wish list. I have my own cat or two roaming and occasionally gracing me with their presence as only a cat can do. Purring and sharing a spot of sunshine with me. I see myself singing to an appreciative audience, songs that I have written and in my fantasy they know the words as well as I do. I imagine spooning with a man that is a mystery but at once deeply familiar, a man with my hearts stamp of approval whose heart has stamped an approval of me, masculine and sexy, to share laughter and warm, delicious meals with. In this home I am drawing with my mind, I have a big wooden table and chairs and I enjoy food and consoling conversation over candlelight with my beloved friends. They bring their warmth across my threshold. Everything in life that is manifest must have at one point in time have been unmanifest, I entertain these pictures and hopes in my head and pray that they will all, someday soon, come into being.

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Own Little world.

"He's in his own little world." I've heard that sentence many times in my life. "Uh oh!", I hear you thinking. "Not one of THOSE blog entries!" But I assure you I'll try to keep the nostalgia and self-indulgence to a mild roar. I will make every effort to keep this amusing to the reader, but I admit that this is my therapy. Often I haven't got a clue about how I'm feeling until I've written something about it so keep a barf bag handy. Lately I've been losing at the dating game again. I hate reruns and remakes of old classics so I'll spare you the details, but basically hounded after someone who just couldn't be "sure" how he felt about me. Our last conversation felt like the final dress rehearsal for an episode of Santa Barbra. Cliched and predictable but like any dedicated actor I made like it was all happening for the first time. I'm disappointed but I'm not devistated. It's really not his fault. I think I only chose to fall for him in the first place because I could never really have him. Another excuse for drama, another reason to stay up late staring glassy eyed at the moon stretching my imagination with his image. Poor man, it's hard to imagine that we inhabit the same planet never mind the same wavelength. I think I just imagined that we could communicate through the impenetrable glass of our different space ships in the vastness of Gay outerspace. Sigh!A lot of what I wanted to say to him seems lost in translation. Through my tainted spectacles now everybody seems isolated and unable to communicate with others. I notice those alone. I see people desperate to have their stories heard. I watch hundreds of knuckles knocking on thousands of doors and like me not recieving a much longed for reply or opening. Working long hours immersed in the desperation of the townships is also not exactly doing wonders for my outlook. But if you ask me I will swear on my life that I am an optimist. However, I am not blind. Watching small children fight over a small handful of soggy fried potato chips puts things into perspective and then I notice how song and laughter permeates and soothes even the most dire of circumstances. The poor and abandoned I have encountered laugh and smile so freely. I see so much dissatisfaction amongst adults but I think it's merely my own that the world is reflecting back at me. This would make sense because I have been looking for myself out there. I understand why alchohol and drugs play such a major role in society because I find myself longing for something to numb the intensity of the thoughts that climb into bed with me at night. But instead of watching TV, I face them and its not unbearable. I am,for the most part happy in my own world. I make good company and am blessed in so many ways by so many people but it does feel at times like we are all in our own bubbles packed up against each others as tightly as foam. All together yet, each in his own little shiny rainbowed orb ocassionally popping one another as we squirm for our own space. I live on faith and I survive on a positive mindset and I can do this because I recognise the breadth and depth of the potholes in the road ahead and go around them rather than try to convince myself that they are not there. My current potholes are bad habits carried over from the past and the illusion that I need fame or a meaningful relationhip to be a succesful individual. This is not true, what I do need (I'd like to believe) is Love and laughter and already my accounts are brimming with both. Perhaps I'm not meant to come out of my own little world, and if so it wont be that bad because in here I am safe and Loved and maybe the "real" world can learn a lesson or two from me,even if its how NOT to do things. I think that if I just keep planting a Little Love and Laughter everyday of my life that eventually I will find myself the beneficiary of a very rich harvest. One can only hope, but even if I don't it will be a noble occupation nonetheless that should make the world a better place. Mine and everyone elses.